#he already told me that he has two adult daughters whom he has no contact with

[dearweirdme]

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[kendrixtermina]

On the great selfishness of forced “reconcilliation”or, what’s in it for me? (A Thinkpiece)

It’s very clear and easy to see what he would get out of it: A great relief to his ego, self-image and pride. A feeling of attaining his goal. He’d no longer have to explain to himself or anyone why his daughter isn’t speaking to him. He would be more comform with the image and values he wants to attain. He would have piece of mind. 

I’m even gonna be generous and grant that he would feel happy about the connection and being able to show his love, though I personally don’t buy it. 

But what do I get? 

A common retort here tends to be that I’d get “peace of mind”, and I grant that this can be true for a person who hates conflict and feels distres from disharmony, but I am really quite comfortable with some conflict. I don’t care to be friends with everyone. I get that not everyone will like me, and I’m fine with that. 

It’s actually rather arrogant for someone to inflate their own importance to the point that they think your mentsal wholeness, hapiness and peace of mind depends wholly on themselves - like all your other relationships, your job,  your hobbies and any self-improvement efforts you might be  doing don’t matter at all. It’s jarring that anyone would think claiming that would make you forgive them, especially if your initial complaint was that they are arrogant and treated you as an extension of themselves rather than a whole person. They’re claiming that they changed and in the same breath showing that they still think your life revolves around them, that they get to have the relationship by default without ever having to build it. 

And even such a person for whom forgiveness would bring piece of mind could just forgive the person in the quiet of their own heat for their own betterment without reestablishing relations. They wouldn’t be keeping to themselves because of a grudge, but simply because there is no good reason to connect. 

Do you need a reason?

Well, if you didn’t, then you would have to connect to every single person who has not given you reason to loathe them. That’s impossible. 

Consider that there are seven billion human beings on this planet. Most of them I will never meet. I couldn’t be friends with all of them even if I wanted. We all have limited time and energy. So, I have to pick some.

And to pick all the ones who just happen to be nearby seems like leaving a very important part of your life up to randomness. Your social contacts, after all, influence what values ideas you’re exposed to and what kind of support is available to you, and what experiences and energies you invite into your life.

It makes sense to first consider your family: They’re already nearby, you get to know them very well by virtue of living together, they’re biologically programmed to get attached to you, and they are likely to have things in common with you.

So if you know nothing else, it makes good sense to assume that a family member is a good candidate for a social contact. 

But there are also family members who are NOT good choices for company. I think most of us can agree to this as a principle at least for extreme cases like rape. 

So, it’s rather like this: A family member is a good candidate for social contact unless proven otherwise. 

If we were like god who can be everywhere at once and needs nothing and never gets tired, then maybe we could be friends with everyone who is not an irreedemable sinner, but I am not god. 

Any relationship costs time and energy. Yet, this can be very worthwhile, because human relationships also have great benefits.

For a relationship to be worth keeping up, the benefits have to equal or outweigh the work. 

In our christianity-influenced culture it is still considered shameful to admit that you “want” something out of a relationship, but really, all of us do - that’s why we start and maintain relationships. Not being aware of that makes us blind.

By ‘benefits’ I don’t just mean shallow things like sex, attention or status. If you are longing for deep, meaningful experiences, that’s your benefit. If you love to give and see others thrive, that’s your benefit. 

And I don’t mean that as a clever gotcha or as some cynical assertion that all relationships are inherently transactional, but as an useful mental framework to make oneself aware of the desired end result and check if one’s actions are in accordance with that.

If you want your children to trust you, you can’t judge and humiliate them when it’s convenient because that destroys the trust that keeps them listening to you & sustains the relationship. In the book “7 habits of extraordinaryly efficient people” this is called Production vs. Production Capacity or “The Goose and the Golden Egg”. 

And don’t get me wrong, nortmally, there are great benefits to keeping in touch with your parent as an adult: 

They typically have more ressources and are more advanced in their careers, so they can help you if you’re in trouble

They might be wiser, more experienced and more mature than you, so they can give you valuable advice

And lastly, you have all the benefits you’d get from any close social bond: Companionship and emotional support. They can listen to your woes, share you joy, you can tell them your thoughts, liven up your everyday life, and they can also introduce you to new ideas and viewpoints, and motivate you to go beyond your comfort zone. What’s more, being with a loved one can give you a feeling of meaning and community all on its own. Just seeing them on its own can make you feel happy, satisfied and meaningful. They don’t even need to do anything. They might be interesting and loveable and just all around enjoyable to be around and fill your heart with warm fondness.

People who have even 1 decent parent should be aware how lucky they are compared to ppl with no parents or two unforgiveable asshat parents. Every time you spend a good time with your parent, think of all the orphans, thrown-out gay kids etc. who don’t have that. Having a nice parent who supports you well into adulthood is a cause for great gratitude. 

But now let’s look at an abusive jerk parent. 

Could I get material support? No, because it comes with a proce tag of emotional distress. You will be guilt tripped even for the baby wipes that wiped your newborn butt! Super not worth it. If I wanted to pretend to like someone for money, I would just open an onlyFans, it’d be much less stressful 

Could I get valuable advice? Is he wise? No. He is a fool. All his opinions are copypasted from rightwing websites. H e was telling us to heard hydroxy last year. Is he mature? He has the maturity of a toddler My 20 year old sister is a hundred times more mature. 

Could I get emotional support? No, you have to walk on eggshells around him

Could i share my thoughts? No. he flies into a range if anyone voices any opinion that isn’t to his liking

Could we have fun together? No. He hates my lifestyle and values, and I loathe his. I think his politics are deeply immoral and he probably thinks the same about mine. We have zero interests in common. He only ever mocked my music and interests and tried to force me into sharing his so that I now associate them with bad memories. I would never be friends with such a person normally.  I would count to ten so that O don’t waste time having pointless arguments with them on youtube comments.  He says people like me are destroying Europe and that we are lazy degenerates. And this is assuming I believe that he didnt mean all the other outrageous things hes since made flimsy pretend apologies for.  

Could I relax around him? No. I’m rather efficiently pavlov trained to associate him with pain and humiliation. Speaking to him tires me alot. It would cost me much, much more effort than any other relationship, and much time I could be spending doing useful things or interacting with people that I don’t have bad blood with & that don’t trigger emotional flashbacks with their mere presence

Would I enjoy being near him? No. He has zero traits that I like, value or enjoy. I absolutely do not enjoy being near him. I might have suffered him to touch me as I child because I was told to by my mother whom I trusted, but it was always with fear. He’s also never shown much signs of being interested in me. He would always yell at me if I entered a room and cried and whined about what a burden and a punishment I was. That is, except for making me take courses so he could then brag about having a child that does this & that, ignoring my wishes completely. In effect he brushed my real instincts and personality aside to mold me into his fantasy of having a child prodigy, exerting extreme pressure, and then humiliated and abused me when I remained a perfectly ordinary, non-genius child. 

None of the normal reasons for having a social bond is present. There are only downsides for me: I have to shut up, bottle up my feelings, play nice, censure my thoughts etc. 

I could see the point of doing that for a boss who pays me money, or to get into a social group that gets me prestige and energy, or maybe to get along with the friends and family of spouse I love and enjoy. 

But what do I get here? 

I mean, I’m not a child. I get that you sometimes have to play nice to get paid or archieve a cause. But my private relationships in my private life should be pleasurable. It’s where I go to recover from the work where fakery maybe can’t be avoided.

So why, why in the name of god would I ever chose THIS person to spend time with out of all the seven billion humans on earth? Aside from murderesrs, rapists and evil politicians, he’s probably among the worst choices. 

Obviously this “reconcilliation” could only benefit him. There is no joy for me, no benefit. It’s purely letting myself be used for his ego like he has always done for the first 20 years of my life. If he was capable of providing the benefits normally associated with having a father, he would have done so already. 

Considering that the whole problem was that he used me to fill his needs instead of thinking about my needs like a parent is supposed to, it’s insuit to injury and salt in the wounds. 

And if I wanted such benefits, I would have much better odds of getting them by trying to find a mentor, tutor, life coach, therapist,  friend etc. who is an older male. 

So why would I believe that he is changed if in the next breath he makes such a profoundly, deeply selfish request? 

If anything it shows me that he still doesn’t have the capacity to consider things from my PoV and see me as an adult independent human with logic, feelings and will. 

This is not about not wanting to make the effort. No one makes an effort for effort’s sake; They do it because something worthwhile is at the other end. 

There is nothing for me to gain here, nothing at all. 

I see the point of making an effort to salvage a once good relationship that has gotten sour because of mistakes: The hope is that you can have that good relationship once again, or even a better, more evolved version of it. 

But here there was never any good to begin with, and any hypothetical good that come in the future is questionable and dubious from past experience.

If he come then and ask, “Then what is he supposed to do then?” that would just be proof of that same objectifying mindset, that he just need to throw some coins in and out pops a relationship.

You’re just going to have to live with the consequences of your actions, just as I do every day. 

Once upon a time when I was younger, I might have said “show real interest in me”, there’s people that know me that you can ask. Heck, I’ve got an internet presence. Nowadays, I do NOT want that. I’ve learned not to let him have any information or acess about me because I’ve seen time and time again that it will just be used as ammunition to clubber me. The benefit of the doubt is fucking gone. 

But I have always believed in free will & not putting people into fixed unchangeable categories like, say, “narcissist” that give themselves easily to easy juddgement and fundamental attribution & stigmatize mentally ill people. It’s much more sensible to label behavior. 

So in the name ofintellectual integrity, I’m going to try & name something that might lead me to reconsider. Not immediately agree, because that would presuppose that he’s entitled to it somehow. Just think about it. 

It’s really pretty simple: Actually change. 

When I visit my mother and don’t have to witnesses her getting yelled at, pressured and emotionally blackmailed over the phone, when my younger sisters tell me of all the great quality time theyare spending and how much he listens and cares about their feelings, when he behaves like he understands what he did, maybe then I’ll believe. 

But as of now it seems about as unlikely to me as a giant sucker on the backside of Pluto. I can’t prove 100% it isn’t there, but it seems unreasonable to live my life assuming it exists. 

99% sure isn’t the same as 100% sure, but both those things are very different from 0%. then again its a pretty common trope of far right rhetorics to act like every degree of uncertainty is the same

[razieltwelve]

Heroic Fury (Worm/Final Rose)

Fury was supposed to be dead. In fact, he could definitely remembering closing his eyes for the last time on a hill with a wonderful view. It hadn’t been a bad way to go. He’d been one of the oldest chocobos in history, and he’d died with his best friend at his side after a life filled with glory and success. 

He’d kind of expected to wake up in the endless fields the chocobos all believed they went to when they died if they were worthy. Sure, he was basically a jerk, but saving the world more than fifteen times had to be worth something, right?

Apparently not.

Or maybe it was.

“Help!”

The words seemed to echo through his being, and he frowned. Like any self-respecting chocobo who’d lived for more than a decade or two, he was well aware of Aura and how to use it. What troubled him was that his Aura was now closely connected to a much smaller Aura signature, one he wasn’t familiar with, and that same signature was radiating distress.

“Someone, help! Please!”

Sighing, Fury jogged toward the source of shouting. He could just tell this would be troublesome. It didn’t take him more than a minute to reach the site of a car crash. His eyes narrowed. He knew what cars looked like. This car didn’t look like any model he’d seen before. The clothing the little girl tugging at the mangled doors of the car was wearing also didn’t match what people from Remnant wore.

Oh crap.

He’d listened to Diana rant enough times to realise where this was going.

He’d been reincarnated into another universe or something.

“Kweh.”

The little girl stopped, turned, and screamed.

“Ah!”

Rolling his eyes again, Fury tugged on the Aura link between them. It was how chocobos could make themselves understood. Normally, it took time to build up the resonance and closeness required, but for some reason the link was already in place.

“Stop panicking. Are those your parents in the car?”

The girl blinked, and her eyes widened. “Yes…”

“Move.” The girl scooted out of the way, and Fury simply tore the passenger door off its hinges before tugging the woman slumped against the airbag out with his beak. He repeated the process on the driver’s side. “Do you have a scroll?”

“A scroll?” the little girl asked. “What…?”

“A way to contact people.”

“Oh.” She shook her head. “I don’t have anything and…”

Fury sighed. This was already proving to be quite troublesome. “Which way is the closest town?”

“Um…” the girl pointed. “That way.”

“Fine.” Fury used his beak to lift the two adults onto his back before gesturing for the girl to climb on as well. “Hold on. This won’t take long.”

In his prime, Fury had been able to reach speeds well in excess of two hundred miles per hour. Heck, he could cruise at that speed for hours at a time. Unfortunately, he had three passengers, two of whom were in no condition to hold on. Instead, he was forced to go at much more sedate pace that still allowed them to reach the nearest town in a little under half an hour.

Naturally, they panicked when they saw him. He looked heavenward. Seriously? Of all the places he could have been reincarnated into, he had to get stuck in a world without any other chocobos?

X     X     X

Taylor stared at the massive bird in awe. Fury. That was his name. The seven-year-old was still trying to wrap her head around that. A talking bird. A talking bird that was more than ten feet tall. All she could remember about the crash was stumbling out of the car and seeing her parents not moving. She’d been so scared, and she’d wished that there was someone - anyone - who could help her. And then Fury had been there.

Even at the hospital he hadn’t left her side, and there was something comforting about his presence even if he wasn’t exactly the nicest bird. Some of the things he’d said about the way the doctors and nurses treated injuries weren’t very nice.

“They seriously don’t have nano-machine serums here? One of those would have your parents back on their feet within an hour.” The chocobo, as he called himself, scowled. “And don’t even get me started on your other technology. It doesn’t look like you even have holographic projectors.”

“Um… did the place you came from have those things?”

“We had spaceships too,” Fury said. He paused. “Wait… do you guys not have Grimm here?”

“Grimm?”

“Monsters that go around killing everything.”

“We… we have something kind of like that.”

“What do you mean?”

So Taylor, in the scared, halting manner of a seven-year-old told him about the Endbringers.

Fury growled. “It’s a pity my friend’s parents or siblings aren’t here. They’d have your Endbringer probably fixed by tomorrow.”

“…”

“Anyway, Taylor, it looks like we’ll be stuck with each other for a while.”

“Wait…” It suddenly dawned on Taylor what the situation might be. “Are… are you my power?”

“What?” Fury stared. “I’m not your Semblance.”

“What’s a Semblance?”

What followed was a strange conversation as Taylor tried to understand what Fury was saying about powers. Wherever he’d come from, they seemed to work differently from the powers Taylor knew about. When he was done, she tried to explain to him how powers worked.

“I get it.” Fury made a face. “That’s why we’re connected, I guess. Your ‘power’ must have acted like a beacon for whatever dumped me in this universe. I wish Diana was here. She’d figure it out.” Fury twitched. “Either way, you’re the only person with Aura that I’ve seen here.”

“Aura?”

“Oh, you’ll love Aura,” Fury explained. “Want to know what it can do?”

X     X     X

Danny looked up - way up - at the towering bird that stood beside his daughter. Not far away, Annette did the same. 

“This is Fury, dad.” Taylor smiled. “He saved you and mom.”

The bird looked only vaguely interested in being in the same room as him. 

“Uh…” Danny shook himself. “Taylor! Did you get powers?”

“Uh… kind of? Fury says it’s complicated.”

“…”

X     X     X

Author’s Notes

This is a bit of fun that I’ve been thinking of for a while. Dumping someone like Lightning or Averia into Worm can be a bit boring since they can curb stomp everything in Worm (and that includes Scion). Fury, however, is not capable of doing that, so he’s got a more interesting journey ahead of him with Taylor.

In this AU, Taylor should have triggered after her family got into a car crash. Instead, whatever force sent Fury there, prevented her from triggering and gave her Aura instead, as well as a helpful (if ornery) chocobo. Instead of Queen Administrator, Taylor will be getting a Semblance. In particular, she’ll be getting Mix and Match, a Semblance that allows for the creation of sentient constructs through combining different objects (e.g., combining a sufficiently large lump of steel with the corpse of badger could give you a giant steel badger). With sufficient crafting expertise and by bootstrapping her way up by combining constructs, she could potentially create constructs of incredible power. Keep in mind, Taylor will also have Aura and the advantages that brings. 

Since she ‘triggered’ at such a young age, this Taylor will end up joining the Wards much sooner. Everyone will also be convinced that Fury is a projection of sorts since, after some trial and error, Taylor realises that she can actually summon and dematerialise him. She is basically his anchor to this reality.

In typical Fury fashion, he is going to try to help her reach her full potential by subjecting her to the same training regimes he saw Taren go through. That’s going to be fun for her. Or not. He might also try to get her to build some of the things from Remnant. Sure, Fury is a chocobo, but he is highly intelligent and he’s seen Taren and the others handle technology enough to know how some of it is made. More fun for Taylor.

Incidentally, if you’re wondering about ratings, here’s how Fury would be rated:

Mover 5+. As one of the greatest chocobos in history, Fury is capable of reaching and maintaing speeds well in excess of 200 miles per hour for extended periods of time. Due to the abilities he possesses as an elite black-and-red chocobo with monstrous quantities of Aura, he can also run impeded across virtually any surface. This includes running across water, ice, and even up vertical surfaces. In principle, he can even run upside down although he dislikes doing it. Using his full speed, he can go supersonic for short bursts, something he uses in many of his more powerful attack techniques.

Brute 5+. Due to the natural durability of an elite chocobo and the effects of Aura, Fury can ignore small arms fire and even withstand multiple hits from anti-tank weaponry, assuming he can even be hit due to his speed. When focused entirely on defence, he becomes even more durable. Using his beak and claws combined with his Aura, Fury can easily tear through steel, concrete, and other durable materials. He would find it trivially easy to simply pierce through the side of a battleship with his beak if he used his Aura to reinforce the blow.

Thinker 3+. Fury has exceptionally well developed combat instincts. An entire lifetime spent fighting alongside Taren and his family have made him arguably the most experienced and skilled chocobo in history. He was able to keep up with S Tier huntsmen and huntresses in melee combat. To most opponents, it will seem like he knows what they’re going to do before they do.

[cryptoriawebb]

At long last I have finished Yoru’s biography sheet. It’s a little on the longer side but I’m proud of it.

Anyone checking in for the first time, Gesshoku Yoru is my shinigami OC for the anime/manga Full Moon wo Sagashite.

Shoutout to @starspatter for helping me along the way <3

Trigger warning: mentions of depression and suicide

Background: Yoru exists in a prequel story to both the manga and anime for Full Moon wo Sagashite. This prequel contains a slightly different origin for Shinigami. Instead of ‘hatching’ as adults, those who end their lives reawaken as children again and begin the early stages of their training from a young age. They are called “Fledglings.”

Physical Description: A girl of average height and build with black hair and eyes to match. As a child she wears her hair in two buns. Long bangs parted to the left. She dresses in Victorian-style children’s dresses that are dark (usually black but sometimes blue) in color. Wears either mary janes or small boots with bat wings. Also wears a bat hairclip.

As an adult her hair is short, though she still has her long bangs. They part to the left. Her clothing style is still gothic, but purple and black but takes inspiration from steampunk as well. No gears but lots of buckles and frills. Sleeveless gloves with lace around the wrists. A black and blue corset with belts and a layered dress that’s short in front and flares out in the back. Wears boots that come up to below the knee. Also wears a mini top hat over one of her bat ears, decorated with a purple five-petal flower that resembles the “flower of forgetfulness” in the anime. Her hat also has two feathers: a black and purple plume and a smaller black feather. Again, since she works in the pediatrics unit Yoru has small black bat ears; one is visible and one is covered by her hat. Unlike other Shinigami, Yoru has bat wings.

Yoru’s updated design:

Personality:

Human – shy, crippled by anxiety that often led her to choose the withdrawn/polite response over expressing herself. Tried to embrace her interests and gothic fashion-style but grew discouraged overtime, feeling much like an outcast. Had no close friends so relied heavily on her family for support.

Shinigami – as a fledgling, Yoru was very shy for quite a while. Meroko (and Yoru’s eventual budding feelings for her) pushed her to express herself and embrace the other Fledglings as a new family. Takuto joining also helped; Yoru saw a lot of herself early on in the quiet Fledgling and went out of her way to (politely) include him the way Meroko did her. As an adult doubts and depression follow Yoru around like a dark cloud. Her close-knit support system has strained over the years, though she remains on good terms with the other Shinigami. Her relationship with Meroko grows painful as well as her feelings were never reciprocated, not that she ever told her.

____

Relationships: Shinigami   Meroko – Yoru’s first real friend, her best friend and one she eventually falls in love with. Calls her “Mero-chan” as a child and occasionally in adulthood. Meroko remains in large part unaware of Yoru’s feelings. Though she ends up forgetting Yoru she left the strongest impression, maintaining a sensitive heart. Meroko cries for reasons she in part doesn’t understand when Izumi gifts her a new outfit. In the anime she reunites with Yoru twice: once unaware during her quest for the Flower of Forgetfulness and again, officially, as an angel.

Izumi – A rival for Meroko’s affection. She considers him a friend in adulthood. Isn’t aware Izumi knows of her feelings for Meroko. He sympathizes with her, understanding her dissatisfaction and quest for answers. Witnesses Yoru’s final moments. Her disappearance makes an impression and leaves him cynical and even antagonistic about lasting love of any kind. He’s also the only one who remembers her and this may be in part due to his own retained memories from his human life. He tries in his own ways to get their friends to remember, going so far as to give Meroko an outfit largely inspired by Yoru’s. His nickname for her is “Yo-run.”

Takuto – As the youngest Fledgling of the group Yoru has a soft spot for him and at times dotes him like a big sister would. Is unaware he has a crush on her. In adulthood she finds him easiest to relate to as he triggers the least negativity in her and struggles with his own obstacles as a Shinigami-in training. Nonetheless her presence is painful to him as he still holds a waning candle for her and may suspect why she never returned his own feelings.

Sheldan – The head of Pediatrics and the teacher/primary caretaker of the young Fledglings. Yoru is intimidated by him at first and treats him with a distant respect in adulthood until she starts investigating her human life. Grows secretive around him like the others and paranoid/angry as well. She wonders why he assigned her pediatrics and resents his attitude towards her failures.

Mystere – Yoru doesn’t know Mystere but she has heard of her, though not by name. As the Goddess of Death Yoru considers the idea of her eerie, mystic and intimidating. Towards the end of her life blames her along with Sheldan, holding her responsible in part for their suffering as Shinigami purely because of her status.

___

Humans: Mother – Yoru’s relationship with her mother changed day to day. Both loved one another very much and Yoru had many fond childhood memories of spending time with her. However, Yoru’s mother was a more traditional woman and did not always approve of Yoru’s peculiar interests and fashion choices. That said, they continued to bond over a love of holidays and holiday parties.

Father – Yoru’s relationship with her father was benign but empty: he spent much of her childhood working so she didn’t see him often and as an adult she was away. Her father largely expressed his love for his children in the form of material gifts.

Little brother – Yoru and her little brother did not always get along just like most siblings. That said she was fond of him and more often than not doted on him the way her parents did her. There were at times some form of jealousy: being the eldest by quite a few years sometimes she felt they favored him over her. When this occurred she’d tell herself that wasn’t true: her parents cared deeply for her, they just showed support in different ways because she was older.

Kouyama Mitsuki – One might argue Yoru’s relationship with the other Shinigami foreshadowed their meeting and helping Mitsuki. Her name parallel’s  Yoru’s surname: “Full Moon” and “Lunar Eclipse.” (or ‘eating the moon’ in Japanese.) They never officially meet but one might argue in the anime they did unofficially as Mitsuki watched Meroko’s journey into the underworld and sang along with her...

____

Life before becoming a Shinigami: Gesshoku Yoru was born in the late 1960s. She was the eldest daughter of an upper-middle class Japanese family. She had one younger brother. Her father worked for a corporate company and he and his family were well-liked by their community. They would throw extravagant holiday parties that Yoru looked forward to every year. The family was close within itself as well and Yoru’s parents doted on her and her brother. Yoru’s father occasionally traveled for work and sometimes brought his family with him. When Yoru was a young teenager she accompanied him to England. Already interested all things dark and spooky she took a liking to the budding gothic fashion and took this interest back with her to Japan.

While the family was close, however, Yoru had difficulty maintaining relationships with her peers. Many of her friendships felt superficial, too polite and/or distant. Yoru suspected the friends she had hung around due to her parents’ job and money. They certainly weren’t interested in any of her passions, least of all her dark/gothic fashion, finding it eccentric and a little creepy.

Yoru lived with her family until young adulthood where she eventually moved into her own apartment. Her parents encouraged this and had money saved for her to live on while she made a start in the world. Yoru lived by herself, further isolating her from potential relationships. Far enough away she couldn’t visit home casually, Yoru looked forward to the family parties: the few times she felt she really belonged.

During the summer of her first year on her own Yoru’s family died while on vacation. The vacation home they were renting caught fire. This devastated Yoru: she’d been looking forward to the yearly Halloween party more than anything else. To make matters worse, shortly after their deaths the company her father worked for was charged with fraud, of which her father participated. When word of this got out the scandal stained her family name and those whom Yoru remained in contact with cut her out completely.

Yoru took her own life early on Halloween. Desperate to bring back her warm memories in some way Yoru tried to host her family’s Halloween party anyway, throwing herself into decorating (as best she could) and sending out invitations. No one RSVP’d. Distraught and alone she visited her empty home that night, hoping guests would show up anyway. They didn’t.  Authorities found her the next day, crumpled on the steps in the front room. She was twenty-one. Cause of death: an overdose of sleeping pills she’d been taking nightly following the death of her family.

____

Life as a Shinigami: Yoru hatched as an amnesiac fledgling, a little girl of six or seven. She was greeted by Sheldan and the tiny Meroko Yui. Yoru took a lot of convincing to come out of her shell—literally and figuratively. Eventually the two brought Yoru to their headquarters where she was given a room and new clothes. Though she wouldn’t remember why, Yoru took a liking to the bat accessories as well as her gothic-victorian dresses. She took a liking to Meroko too. The pink-haired girl was her first earnest, honest friend and that planted the seed for a crush that would one day develop into unrequited love. Sometime before Izumi showed up both grew a tiny pair of wings: feathered for Meroko and bat for Yoru. Yoru was self-conscious about her wings from the start but Meroko encouraged her to embrace them (they suited her well!) Yoru uses her surname for two reasons: as a fledging, her fascination with western culture lingered. Also, the scandal and trauma tied to her family name is what ultimately led to her death. Sheldan decided it might trigger her memory, so chose her given name for her instead.  

Yoru and Meroko were there to greet Izumi, alongside Sheldan, although he didn’t warm up to them right away. Rather Izumi grew to be a pain in Yoru’s side, particularly when he started teasing/picking on/favoring Meroko. He even picked a nickname for her (‘Me-chan’) which to Yoru seemed like a variation of the one she’d given Merko.

Sometime later Sheldan took another Fledgling Shinigami under his wing: a little boy named Takuto. Quiet and smaller than the others he reminded Yoru of herself. She befriended Takuto and tried to make him feel welcome. Subconsciously he also reminded her of her brother and slipping into the big sister role again shed the rest of her shell. Soon enough Takuto shed his own shyness; he never grew wings, however and Yoru found this odd.

As the four Fledglings grew older Sheldan assigned them “junior” missions, pairing them off to see who worked best together. Yoru and Takuto struggled during this period and so when they started working on legitimate missions both trainees were permanently assigned to their more successful peers. Yoru worked with Meroko and Izumi with Takuto.

Yoru did not find success as a Shinigami: her bat wings and ears frightened children; some protested going with her and it in turn caused trouble for Sheldan. This upset Yoru greatly who wanted to succeed. Overtime she started resenting her appearance and slowly obsessed over why she grew bat wings instead of feathers. She began wondering if the answer lay in her human life. Her friends warned her to let it go before it became dangerous…but Yoru’s repeated almost-failures swayed her over their concerns. Yoru in part didn’t mind any would-be consequences; at this point she realized for sure however much Meroko loved her it would never be in a romantic way. That hurt more than any lost soul under her duty.

Yoru at first hid her investigation from her friends; Izumi was the first to clue into what she was doing. He didn’t confront her at first as he had his own secrets. When Yoru’s memories start to came back she hid this as well, along with what was happening to her.

Sometime before Yoru’s death Takuto was sent back to training. After she disappeared Izumi became Meroko’s replacement partner. Out of respect for Yoru and perhaps disgust/disappointment no one else remembered her he kept Meroko at a distance for a long time. Eventually he asked Sheldan to dissolve their team and Meroko became Takuto’s partner.

Though Yoru never received a definite answer by the end of her life she suspected she has bat wings for three reasons: 1) she’s always been interested in the spooky/gothic aesthetic and in some ways felt defined by it. 2) her human memories and sense of self revolved strongly around her parents’ holiday parties. She was looking forward to their Halloween party before they died and left the world mourning it alongside her family. 3) She died on Halloween.

When all of Yoru’s memories returned she conceded to becoming a ghost: there was nothing for her in the human world, nothing in the way of love and no career as a Shinigami. She intended to die alone but Izumi followed her and towards the very end of her life made his presence known. They held one last conversation and made some semblance of peace with one another.

Yoru’s strong feelings—both of love and pain--prevented her from turning into a traditional ghost. Instead her soul rooted itself in the underworld, transforming into the Flower of Forgetfulness which greatly resembled the flower on her hat. Her spirit lurked around it and her suffering manifested itself as dangerous obstacles for any who tried to retrieve it. True to her last name, the flower bloomed only during the Lunar Eclipse…and true to the flower, her childhood friends and supervising Shinigami lost their memories of her. Nonetheless, she left such a strong impression on them, a sense of something warm and lost and it might be why they rally around a girl named after the full moon.

In the anime storyline, when Meroko seeks out the Flower of  Forgetfulness Yoru’s wounded spirit attacks her, trying to push her and the painful memories she triggers away. With Mitsuki’s help, Meroko prevails and when she plucks the flower free she frees Yoru’s soul as well. Picking the flower also restores everyone’s memories of Yoru although they would not realize it until sometime later…

Yoru’s spirit subconsciously follows Meroko to the human world: before the now-angel!Meroko flies away she spots her childhood friend, in tattered clothes and without wings or bat ears. Because she is an angel now Meroko can see ghosts (traditional shinigami cannot.) Meroko and Yoru run towards each other, tears in their eyes. They embrace and apologize—Yoru for losing faith in her best friend and Meroko for forgetting her.

Meroko uses her new angel magic to give Yoru a new outfit: black and gothic but mirroring Meroko’s new look. She takes Yoru’s hand and the two leave the world together.

[mrsspidermanmaryjanewatsonparker]

Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows #20-23 Thoughts

Previous thoughts here.

Well I’m almost a year late but I’m finally here, the end of Renew Your Vows.

So did it go out on a high note.

...um...no....no it did not.

 Having finally read the entirety of Houser’s RYV run (but not yet her Spider-Girls work which I am expecting to be a kind of epilogue) there are three perennial problems.

a)      The discarding of the established, yet short live, status quo of issue #1-12

b)      The post-time skip status quo evoking memories and idea from Spider-Girl due to featuring Spider-Man’s teenaged daughter

c)       An over focus upon Annie herself at the expense of Peter and MJ

I’m of the belief that the first point wasn’t Houser’s fault, that the second point was partially Houser’s fault and the final point is entirely Houser’s fault and indeed exacerbates the problem of the second point.

This arc could’ve course corrected some of those issues but it didn’t, indeed it added to them and created yet more problems.

Now this isn’t to say issues #20-23 were a shit show. Dan Slott and BND provided too many shit shows for me to have the heart of lumping this arc with that dreck.

But it is a story arc that doesn’t work much more than it does work.

Let’s talk positives though.

Houser continues to write Peter and MJ in character and believably for an adult couple with a kid. Peter having his share of Dad jokes is very nice in fact. The scene where MJ and Peter discuss the situation in bed was simply wonderfully executed, short, sweet and simple as it was. It was an example of how you can write these characters with maturity in a mature relationship whilst making it interesting. A small but very nice bit was when the couple exchange a knowing look of suspicion for a second before swinging off, you could tell they both knew their daughter was lying to them.

Annie is also believable as a teenager and distinguished in her personality from Mayday. Her exchange with her parents at the start of the arc rang very true. In it Peter and MJ are believably concerned for Annie and want to know what she was doing; if you lived in a world of super heroes you’d be suspicious in that context too. Annie also understandably for a teen gets pissed off. Another nice touch in connection to this was how there were consequences for Annie after her last arc, seeing as she is very much grounded but also in more contact with Normie than she was before.

However the two biggest triumphs for this arc were in how it brought up Clone Saga continuity.

I know a lot of people have Clone Saga sore spots, but this issue addressed the topic in way that bypassed even haters of the story.

Peter and MJ’s pain and anger over losing Ben and baby May is palpable and poignant, entirely earned by the situation. More than this it’s just a wonderful source for drama Houser was brave enough to mine when nobody else wanted to touch the topic for something like 20 odd years more or less. The graveyard scene especially is easily the highlight of the arc.

Peter and Wolverine’s exchange at the diner was also done very well. Wolverine’s advise struck true to who he is and their dynamic here is immensely preferable to Houser’s first issue where Peter was played as something of a beta to Logan. In this series they are both seasoned heroes and fathers with a long history so them talking candidly and personally as they did added up. Peter over dramatically breaking a glass and being indifferent to the shards cutting his hand open though...that was just stupid.

Also for what they were the action scenes were decent enough, the first battle between Annie and her ‘clone’ in particular was well done.

That...unfortunately...is where the positives end though.

The single biggest problems with this arc specifically are that it’s overly focussed upon Annie and features Mister Sinister as the villain.

Now you might argue that there is precedence for this in Houser’s earlier work.

However precedence alone is not necessarily justification.

Clearly building up Mister Sinister as the final boss does little in the way of justifying why, in the final arc of this series about Spider-Man and his family our final villain is...an X-Men character...who’s motivations indeed revolve  around the X-Men. The X-Men taking up page time from the Parker family has been a running issue in this series and I don’t get why, of all things, the post-time skip RYV stories chose that  to be consistent about.

Sinister isn’t even an X-Men villain who’s immediately familiar with general audiences. He’s a complicated and somewhat cryptic character whom, if memory serves, has never (or at least rarely) crossed paths with Spider-Man in any continuity. He’s not like Magneto or anything so throwing him into this series, then not really explaining what his powers even are or much of his background is taking the audience for granted. It’s expecting the audience of a Spider-Man comic to have X-Men knowledge (not even simple X-Men knowledge at that) or worse that they should go do their own homework t find out who he is, which is just objectively bad writing.

It just feels like what we’ve been building to for 10+ issues was essentially an X-Men story that happens to involve the Parker family and Normie Osborn. At least the final pre-time skip arc involved the X-Men in a secondary role to the Parker family, it still revolved around them.

The second biggest problem with this arc is with Annie.

Annie and her relationship with her parents doesn’t really grow or develop much in this arc. Now that could be forgiven because she got a fair bit of development in the last arc. But maybe giving her that development was a mistake as her development in this story, the final  outing for the series as a whole amounts to her coming clean about her Spider Sense visions.

That’d be minor development at best, but what makes this worse is...Annie already told her parents about those.

Now maybe I missed something because I took such big breaks between arcs, but Annie told her parents of her visions back in issue #5!

So it’s just a massive continuity flub for Annie to be acting like she’s been keeping it a secret for eight years.

It wouldn’t be so bad if it was a throwaway line but her concealment of this fact is the crux of her arc in this story and of her relationship with her parents, playing into the resolution of the story and even the very last page.

It just breaks the narrative.

Now in fairness if you ignored every story before Houser’s run, Houser does a good job of realistically justifying how and why Annie kept it a secret and her reveal of it is humerous. But nevertheless...it doesn’t make any sense.

It doesn’t help that between Spidey’s teenage daughter have spider sense future visions and the plot revolving around a possible clone of said teenage daughter created in secret Osborn labs and her wearing a mostly blue outfit this arc is seriously evoking Mayday Parker’s adventures.

Possibly this was intentional as we find up subverting the expectation of clones when we learn that in fact the ‘clones’ are just...genetically engineered beings grafted powers from Annie’s stolen DNA.

Whilst this provides something different it’s also in truth kind of...less dramatic than if they had in fact been clones. That way you could’ve even shallowly touched upon themes of identity and said something about who the Parker family is. Instead they’re about as poignant as Blood Spider.

The arc is further hurt by not really properly explaining how or why Annie was able to see the future/see through the eyes of the mutates with her powers. In fact it tries to claim that this only happens when her ‘clone’ is focussed upon her and yet the first vision she has is when her ‘clone’ attacks some tourists. How/why was she focussed upon Annie in that moment?

The arc’s final major failing is, as I mentioned, with focussing upon Annie at the expense of her parents.

I thought given how Houser’s opening arc was more evenly divided between thee leads and then we got an Annie centric arc and then a Peter/MJ centric issue that we’d wrap up with another arc given over to all of them. But it’s still more Annie’s show than anyone else’s.

Yes we get some inner thoughts from MJ in two issues and a bit more than that from Peter. But it’s mostly there to spice up the scenes they occur in. They offer little insight into the thoughts and feelings of the elder Parkers and they are totally drowned out in comparison to Annie’s inner thoughts.

This is sad because the book isn’t supposed to be about Annie but the family as a whole.

But Houser’s approach in this arc tries to strike this weird arrangement wherein the scheme at play is about the X-Men, but the plot is focussed upon Annie’s side role within that plot, but also tries to give time over to Peter and MJ as severely beta leads to Annie.

And it consequently renders the arc as neither an X-Men story, nor a Parker family story and a weaksauce Annie story.

It’s like this arc is ‘Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead’ but if Rosencrantz got much more focus than Guildenstern....but then their story is a fleshed out side story in like Macbeth instead of Hamlet so they’ve got little reason to actually be involved in the central conflict but are anyway.

It’s such a weird creative choice.

Now I’ll still go to bat for Houser, and still argue she should do more Spider-Man work. Her problems on this book nevertheless show me she gets these characters. But I think now the series is wrapped up it’s fair to say she got the premise of Renew Your Vows but let her preference to write for Annie (the character who’s been around for less than 5 years and who as a teen is practically a blank slate) compromise the job she was assigned to do. Because as I said, it’s not like it’s just this arc. Annie got a lot of focus in every issue under Houser sans issue #19.

Other smaller problems with the arc include:

-          Annie’s dream might’ve been a something of a rip-off of ‘Fearful Symmetry’, an early episode of ‘Justice League Unlimited’ in which Supergirl witnesses the actions of her murderous clone during her dreams.

-          It’s made seriously unclear what Annie’s ‘clone’ did t the tourists she attacked or indeed why she attacked them at all

-          Annie’s ‘clone’ has an okay design but it becomes rather banal when you see it repeated with the other Parker ‘clones’

-          The names for the ‘clones’ are rather over complicated and dull. They do make a nice joke or two out of this though

-          There was little point in having Normie grow six arms beyond cheap tension and a dash of fanservice

-          The climax had some nice jokes about how Peter hated their family car, but it seemed out of place in context and also I find it hard to believe Peter would go quite as far as he did in wrecking the thing

-          The final moments of the arc and series as a whole feel very pat and uninspired. Like Houser had to wrap it up for the sake of wrapping it up because they needed to move onto the next thing

-          The art was a bit sketchy and felt unfinished

My kneejerk reaction was to give this a C- but looking back I gave the last major arc that too and that was definitely better than this.

So I guess...D+I hate sending this series off with that grade but it is what it is.

Hopefully Spider-Girls will be an improvement

P.S. I also just remembered Wolverine referenced Hank McCoy but...didn’t he die back in like issue #6 or 7? wtf

[peanutbuttercreamjelly]

Red Wine: Plan B - Conor Maynard

Word Count: 2.395

Warnings: Mentions of NSFW, mentions of pregnancy, mentions of unsafe sex, mentions of the morning-after-pill

Another part of the Red Wine series is here, finally! As I already said, this series will not be chronologically, so this happens way later in their relationship.

Visiting Brighton was always a special time for Vee and Conor. Having both grown up there, they still had a special connection to this place. The Maynards still lived in the house where Conor, Jack and Anna had grown up in, but the house right next to theirs had gone through a row of owners until a married couple in their fourties had bought it a few years ago. It used to belong to Vee’s family, but since they had moved abroad just as she and Jack had finished elementary school, they had sold it. Vee’s mum still lived in town, though she had moved into a rather shabby neighbourhood because as a divorced woman, she couldn’t afford living in this area anymore. That was mostly all Vee knew about her. Their relationship had always been complicated, even when Vee was a child, but now they weren’t even on speaking terms. Vee used to spend time with her dad when they all still lived together, but since he had moved back to Italy and got married to a new woman, all they had were the few weeks of vacation Vee would always stay at his vineyard. There wasn’t any bad blood between them, they just weren’t as close as they used to be.

However, her relationship with Conor’s parents had remained the same, even though they didn’t see each other for about eight years while Vee had been abroad and her mother had forbidden her to contact the Maynards. Once Conor and Jack had brought her home with them, back when Conor and Vee had only been friends, things were back to like they used to be. Helen loved Vee like her second daughter, and welcomed her back into the family like the years they had been separated hadn’t happened. They had a lot to catch up, but the bond that Helen and Vee had was still there, unharmed. Vee was like a second daughter to Helen, and Helen was like the mother that she never had. Earlier, when they had still been living next door, Vee would basically spend all of her free time over at the Maynard house, getting up to some mischief with Jack and Conor. Gary adored her, too. He even built a tree house for the three troublemakers, so they had a little “Headquarter”, as they used to call it. Helen and Gary would have happily adopted her, if her parents would have let them.

As Conor brought home his new girlfriend back then, Helen and Gary were overjoyed when they found out that it was Vee. They were a little surprised when Conor brought her home instead of Jack, but they could soon understand when they saw the chemistry between both of them.

Naturally, coming back to the Maynards always felt like coming home to her. So she was really happy as Conor had asked her to go back home with him for a week, especially since Anna stayed there for the moment, too. The only one missing was Jack, who had decided to go on a last-minute getaway with Mikey and Abe.

Today, Conor and her had been spending the day at the beach, strolling around the pier and just enjoyed having the other to themselves. When they had dinner in a nice Italian restaurant by the water, they decided to walk home instead of taking an uber, since they didn’t live that far away and the sun was still up in the sky, warming the summer air. Hand in hand they strolled through the street, enjoying the evening and each other’s company, until they arrived at the Maynard’s.

Helen and Gary were out in town to have dinner with a few old friends and were bound to return late in the night (or early in the morning, however you’d like to see it), so Anna had the house to herself the whole day. However, when Conor and Vee returned home, they could hear not only her, but there was someone else as well. Vee was pretty sure that she heard Anna moan, and one look to Conor made it clear that he had heard it, too.

His eyes were wide in surprise, Vee would even say that he was shocked, and since the noises were becoming louder by the second, she knew she had to do something. She quickly grabbed Conor’s hand, ushering him out of the house and shut the door quietly. She giggled as Conor’s expression didn’t change.

“Con”, she said, squeezing his hand, “relax.”

“How the hell am I supposed to relax when some wanker fucks my little sister?!”, he whisper-yelled, letting go of her hand.

“Con”, she whispered forcefully, making him look at her. “I know she’s your little sister, but she’s not a baby anymore.”

He sighed. “I know, but…”

“Still, you want to protect her, I get it”, Vee said and took his hand again.

“What are we supposed to do now?”, Conor whispered and squeezed her hand a little bit.

“Maybe we could go in, be a little bit louder than usual so she hears us?”, Vee proposed. As Conor nodded, she took the keys from Conor to open the door.

“Anna, we’re home!”, Vee yelled while Conor shut the door forcefully.

“Hi Anna!”, Conor yelled as well.

They threw away their jackets forcefully when they heard some shuffling upstairs, coming from Anna’s room.

Once Conor and Vee got out of their shoes, Anna and a boy came down the stairs. Anna had obviously tried to fix her hair, but had failed miserably. Conor reached for Vee’s hand.

“Hi”, she said and blushed, trying to pass the two so she could get the boy out of the house quickly. The boy nodded quickly in their direction as well, and Vee could feel Conor tense up.

“Hi, I’m Vee”, she quickly introduced her to the boy, who blushed as he had to stop walking.

“Dustin”, he quickly said, obviously embarrased.

Conor mumbled something under his breath and held Vee’s hand even tighter.

“Anyway, Dustin has to go now”, Anna quickly said and basically shoved him to the door, until they were out of sight.

“Babe, I’d really appreciate it if you wouldn’t cut off circulation in my hand”, Vee said and chuckled as Conor let go.

“Sorry”, he said grumpily and let go of her. He then started to pace around the living room.

Anna came back alone and as Conor wasn’t watching, Vee winked at her. She returned it. They had a very special bond, too. Anna once said that Vee was the sister she had always wanted.

Just as Anna was halfway up the stairs, Conor spoke up.

“Where d’you think you’re going?”

Vee sighed as she watched Anna stop in her tracks.

“Ehm, upstairs?”, she said and slowly turned around.

“Who was that guy?”, Conor asked.

Vee rolled her eyes, but went over to Conor, nevertheless. She took his hand again, trying to calm his nerves before he’d lash out.

“Guy from high school, we met up today.” Anna’s face was now as red as a tomato.

“Just so you know, we heard you”, Conor said, anger still prominent in his voice.

“I figured”, she said and looked down.

“Con, stop”, Vee said, trying to help Anna out.

“No”, he said, “just tell me you were safe.”

“ ‘f course she was, she’s not stupid”, Vee said.

“You know I’m on the pill, Conor.”

“Please tell me you also used a condom”, Conor said, clearly not wanting to have that conversation with his little baby sister.

“Ehm,” Anna stuttered.

“Anna!”, Conor exclaimed.

“We didn’t have any!”, she defended herself. Vee had become fairly silent now.

“And you couldn’t be bothered to go to Jack’s or my room to look for them?”

“I’m on the bloody pill!”

Conor took a deep breath and looked at Vee, desperate for support.

“You should probably get yourself tested for STDs”, she said.

Anna swallowed and nodded.

It was silent for a moment.

“Didn’t you take antibiotics last week?”, Vee asked, knowing that Anna had taken them because of a UTI.

“Yeah, so?”, Anna asked while Conor tensed up again.

“Antibiotics can make your contraception ineffective”, Vee slowly said and watched Anna’s face fall.

“Fuck”, Anna said and sat down on the stairs. She had suddenly become very pale.

Conor rushed to the door without another word.

Unsure whom she should comfort first, Vee stood in the middle of the living room. As she realized that Anna was crying, she decided to go up to her and joined her on the stairs.

“Hey”, she said, wrapping an arm around Anna’s frame, “it’s going to be okay.”

“W-what am I supposed to d-do now?”, Anna sobbed and buried her face in her hands.

“You should get a plan B”, Vee said and held her a little tighter. “I’m going to tell you a little secret, I’ve once had to get one, too.”

Anna looked up at that and Vee wiped a teardrop away with her thumb.

“Sounds worse than it is, believe me”, Vee said, “but maybe you should call Dustin and tell him.”

Anna sighed. “You’re probably right”, she said, “but I don’t think I can do this… Can’t you call him?”

“I’m afraid that’s something you’ll have to do by yourself”, Vee said, “but meanwhile, I’m going to check up on Conor.”

“God, he’s so mad at me… this is so embarrassing”, Anna said and hid her face again.

“He’s just concerned, you’re his little sister after all”, Vee said and got up.

“But I’m not a baby anymore!”

“That’s what I have told him”, Vee said and smiled before she headed outside to find her boyfriend.

She found him leaning on the wall right next to the front door, so close that she had almost stumbled over him. She sat down next to him. He immediately leaned his head against her shoulder.

“I’m sorry for being such a prick”, he said.

“Well, it’s not me you should apologize to”, Vee said.

Conor sighed. “I know.”

“I told her to call Dustin”, Vee said, “and I might have told her that I’ve had to get a morning-after-pill once, too. She doesn’t know that this was with you, though.”

“Thank you, baby”, he said.

“How did you stay so calm when we had to get it, though?”, Vee asked and laughed lightly as she saw that his hands were shaking a little.

Conor blushed.

“Dunno. Maybe it’s because she’s my baby sister. I know she’s basically an adult, but to me, she’ll always be my baby sister.” He was silent for a second, before he added: “Me and you, we could take care of an actual child, you know?”

“You think so?”, Vee asked in disbelief.

Conor nodded. “I mean, we haven’t exactly talked about this yet but maybe when we’re older, we could have a little family of our own. In a few years, I mean.”

Vee blushed. She never thought about having children herself, but she knew that Conor wanted to have some. She never saw herself as a mother, but the way he said it, made her feel a little bit warmer inside than she had before. She took his hand.

“I’ve never thought about kids”, she admitted, hoping that she wouldn’t scare Conor away now. “I know you want to have some, and you’ll be an amazing father, but I don’t know about me, you know?.”

Conor turned around and kissed her cheek.

“I only want them with you”, he said. “And if you don’t want kids, then I’ll accept it. ‘Cause if I had to choose, I’d always choose you over kids.”

“Wow”, Vee said, knowing how much that actually meant. She could feel herself tearing up, so she hid her face in his shoulder.

“I love you, and I will always love you, no matter what”, he said and kissed the top of her head.

“I love you, too.” She looked up at him again as a tear slipped from her eye. Conor wiped it away. Then he gently touched her chin, pulling her closer to him slightly, and kissed her tenderly on the lips, making goose bumps erupt over her skin. When they parted, Conor touched his forehead against hers and they stayed like this for a little while, until they finally pulled apart.

“And by the way, I know you’re going to be an amazing mother. You’re taking such good care of Anna now, aren’t you?” Vee blushed.

“Speaking of Anna, are we going to make sure that you’re not going to be an uncle yet?”, Vee asked.

Conor went for another peck on her lips and nodded. Vee got up first, reaching out her hand for Conor to pull him up with her and together, they went back inside.

Anna sat on the stairs with puffy eyes, her phone in her hands. She didn’t look up as they entered the house again.

“He said it was my problem now”, she said.

Vee, who held Conor’s hand again, felt him tense up. She squeezed his hand, before she spoke up.

“Our problem, Anna, you’re not alone with it, even it that asshole leaves you alone”, she corrected her.

Anna looked up at her and Conor, and smiled lightly, although tears were still spilling from her face.

“Thank you”, she whispered and stood up to hug the both of them.

“Can you please not tell Jack? He’ll kill him”, Anna said as they pulled back.

“Not if I can get him first”, Conor joked, or at least that was what Vee and Anna hoped.

“I won’t tell him”, Vee said after a quick glance at Conor.

“He doesn’t have to know everything”, Conor agreed reluctantly.

“C’mon, grab your purse and we can go to the pharmacy”, Vee said. While Anna was rushing off to get her things and quickly fix her face from the crying, Conor turned to Vee and pulled her into him.

“Thank you baby”, he said and kissed her temple, “you always know what to say.”

“Maybe I won’t be such a bad mom after all”, she said and giggled.

“We’ll see about that”, Conor teased and smirked as she pouted. He quickly kissed her lips to make it go away.

“Of course you’re going to be amazing”, he whispered against her lips.

 Find the other parts of this series here or view all of my posts here

[scentedbygunpowder]

Riza Hawkeye and Berthold Hawkeye

We aren’t given a ton of information about the relationship between Riza, and her father, Berthold. What we do know is that she considered him a “ frightening man with whom she did not generally associate and could not at all relate,” that he tattooed his research on her back, that he was immersed in his research, and that before he died, he apologized for not doing anything for her. That’s not a lot, and it leaves us with a lot of room for speculation.

It is a fairly common thought, that Berthold was an abusive father, which, given the tattoo and obviously estranged relationship, is an understandable thought. However, given what little we have been told, I think that Berthold was more of a negligent and absent father then an abusive one. 

Riza described him as “frightening.” Now certainly if someone was being abused by a parent, they would likely consider them frightening. But as an adult, if Riza was abused by him during her childhood, I can see her choosing a stronger word then “frightening” to describe him. Cruel or hurtful, or even disturbed, those, to me would hold a much stronger connotation, which would make something like abuse seem more likely. But she chose “frightening” which makes me think that she found him less frightening for physical reasons, and more for just his intensity and distance. I have, personally, found someone frightening even if they never did anything physical to me or others. Considering how obsessed Berthold was with his research, he was probably a pretty intense person, and that can easily be frightening, especially if that full intensity was turned on Riza for a moment or two when he was in the middle of his research when she was a child.. 

She also said that she didn’t generally associate with him, which to me, seems to speak more of an absence of contact then anything. If he was abusive, it’s likely that he would have been controlling as well. When someone is controlling, they generally do associate with the person of their focus, because that’s how they control the person. But Riza said she didn’t associate with him, which seems to indicate a choice in seeing him or not, or in him seeing her or not. If he was an absent father, which, again, would be indicated by the way he was immersed in this research, then either he or she would have the choice of going near each other or not. Considering she found him frightening, it can easily been understood why she didn’t associate with her father, even within the same house. And given that we know he was obsessive about his research, it’s easy to see how he would have made the choice to stay with it instead of his daughter.

Not being able to relate to him could also indicate absence and negligence, because you learn to relate to people by being with them. If he wasn’t around, how could she learn to relate to him? How could she understand her father’s life, thoughts, work, if her father never talked her, never taught her, never spent any time with her? You can’t relate to someone you don’t know, and you can’t know someone if they never spend time with you. If Berthold didn’t spend any time with her, how could she learn to relate to him? And as a parent, it was his job to reach out to her when she was young. If he didn’t do that, then we can see why she never learned to relate to him. They couldn’t share any experiences that would give them a common point to relate to each other with.

It’s also know that Berthold was obsessive with his research, described as “immersed” in it. The one time we see him, he certainly fits the description of a dying man obsessed with his work up until the end. We also know that he was very secretive and guarded about his research, even going as far as not keeping traditional notes, but instead tattooing his completed research on his daughter’s back. He was so guarded about it, that he refused to teach it to his apprentice, Roy Mustang, who had probably learned some of the basics already. A man like that, so consumed by his work, would not have time for a child in his life. It would not be unreasonable to think that be went on research benders to the point that he was not aware of anything else, including Riza.

As for the tattoo, I’ve put my headcanons on it specifically here. But keep reading here first, because I go more into depth here on things that lead into the tattoo.

The apology for not doing anything for Riza when he dies is something that I find interesting. Yes, I know it’s possible for abusers to really care about the people they abuse. But I again think that the wording is interesting. He didn’t apologize for hurting her, but for not doing anything for her. Yes, I know the tattoo is a big point there, but my headcanons on that would explain why that might not be something he’d apologize for. But he did apologize for not doing anything for her, which, would fit with neglect and absence. He wasn’t there to help her grow up. He wasn’t there to provide for her emotionally. He didn’t even leave her much behind. He didn’t do anything for her. That to me sounds like a the regret of a man who did hold care for his daughter, but realized that he hadn’t been there for her like he should have been.

There’s also Roy Mustang. He’s always had a sense of right and wrong, clearly, although different aspects of that have conflicted in the past (his duty to Amestris and the military vs his orders in Ishval vs survival to change things), but it’s clear that he’s always had a sense of right and wrong. He’s also very observant and intelligent. If Riza had been abused, he would have seen signs of it. And I am certain that he would have taken some sort of action to protect Riza.

Riza herself also stayed. Yes, when she was younger, she wouldn’t have had too much of a choice, and may not have known better. But as she grew and especially after Roy arrived, she would have had opportunity to see that the abuse was wrong and escape. She didn’t. She stayed, cared for her dad when he was sick, and even made sure he had a burial. She still had a loyalty to him. I can’t see her staying with her father if he was physically abusive to her.

So, in my opinion, Riza’s father wasn’t abusive to her. He was, however, absent and negligent. But what did this mean for Riza’s relationship with him? 

We don’t know what happened to Riza’s mom. I personally headcanon that she died when Riza was about four. Berthold reacted to his wife’s death by throwing himself into his research. This left little Riza mostly on her own. Her dad kept up with basics like making sure that there was food in the house, but she had to fend for herself often enough when he got on once of his research benders. 

When she was old enough to start school, he would get up and send her on her way, which was a relief to him, because then he didn’t have to worry about her during the day. But he never took an interest in her studies, never paid attention to her. She was, fortunately, a quick study, and so she managed to pick up on things like cooking and sewing and basic housework fairly quickly. For her, it was survival. For him, it meant one less thing he had to worry about. It also helped her in school, as she managed to keep at least average grades. To her father, who would glance at her grades, they told him that she was not smart enough to learn his alchemy. Just imagine what she might have done if she had a parent who actually helped her learn.

He did have moments of showing a softer side towards her. The kitchen would have food in it, or perhaps some new clothes for her, or supplies that they had been running low on. Sometimes she would fall asleep, and wake up in her bed or with a blanket over her. Those moments gave her hope, and fostered her desire to earn her father’s love.

But the older she got, the more he pulled away, leaving her more and more on on her own. She took over more and more of the responsibilities, doing the best she could with what they had, a part of her hoping that her father would show his love to her better one day, would choose her one day. 

It wasn’t until Roy left and her father was desperate that he finally turned towards her, for help with his research. She was thrilled, as it was what she had wanted all along, and, although she didn’t realize just what she was agreeing to, she still agreed. That was when he started tattooing her. He paid more attention to her, and tended to her more in that year then he ever had and she, in return, took care of his as his health was failing.

But by the time Berthold died, Riza was beginning to admit to herself what she had known all along. It had never been about her helping him, it had been about his research, as it always had been. But he had entrusted her with his research and, at that time, although it was a burden, it meant, to her, that he had shown that he cared for her, because he trusted her. 

As an adult, Riza has come to realize that her father was not a good father. He was, in fact, neglectful and absent. She went through periods of resentment towards him, until she finally accepted that what was, was, and while he was not a good father, she still loved him. There are moments where she still has bitter feelings towards him, but she usually deals with those quickly and moves on, because what good would focusing on that be?

[imagine-loki]

Imagine Loki was married to a woman who had a little girl already.  Her father left her as soon as her mother told him she was pregnant and has never been in the picture.  He utterly adores his wife and – to his surprise - comes to love the child very much, so much so that he thinks of her as his own.

Although they were together for two years beforehand, his wife is tragically killed after they’d been married less than a year.  At about three and a half, she becomes his responsibility.  Loki is the only father she’s ever known, and he is more than willing to continue to be that for her.  He intends to raise her as his own, because that’s how he feels about her.

She is his daughter, no less so than any child of his body.

His wife’s family, who never liked him - out of holdover anger from his attack on New York and general suspicion of him as an alien Gawd – appears on his doorstep one day not long after his wife has died, entirely unannounced.

It’s the little girl’s aunt and grandmother, wanting her to come live with them – her aunt and uncle – in Idaho, where her grandmother and grandfather also live in the same town. 

They are obviously nervous to be around him, although he is very polite and tries to be welcoming despite their stated intent, bringing them into the house and offering them refreshments, which, just because he can, he uses his magic to make appear on the coffee table in front of them, secretly enjoying how amazed – and somewhat more tremulous – that makes them.

Loki hadn’t formally adopted her, and therefore technically – legally - has no real claim on the child.  His wife had always meant to name him as the child’s guardian in case something happened to her, but she never got around to it.  But he is loath to give her up for any reason.  The little girl doesn’t know her relatives at all, and he firmly believes that she needs the stability of living in a place and with a person with whom she’s familiar, who knows her and loves her.

And the little girl loves him right back – very much - and adores living with him – especially since her mother has died.  She’s become a bit clingy, not that he minds at all.  He’s doing his best to reassure her both that he will never leave her, and that she is safe enough with him to continue doing what she already enjoys doing.  So he’s been taking her to school and play dates and generally trying to shower her with affection and attention while keeping things as normal, stable, and secure for her as he can.

And it doesn’t hurt that he lives in Avenger Tower, and the Avengers are always around her, too.  They’re also all actively helping him make certain that she feels safe and loved.

But, despite everything how secure he’s trying to make her feel, and how much she loves him,  she also mistakenly gets the idea that he doesn’t really want her there, that she’s just getting in his way – which is very much like her mother believed about him at first. 

She overheard him not long ago saying to his big brother, Thor, that he couldn’t join a mission because he had to take care of her, and misinterprets it that he is unhappy about that, when that is the farthest possible thing from the truth.

He hadn’t been complaining to Thor about having to stay behind with her, he was explaining.  In truth, he is eager to put her first in all things, and he has no problem at all declining missions in favor of daddying his little girl to the best of his meager abilities.

Regardless, that cemented in her mind her childish worries about being a bother to him, and that he’d prefer she live with her relatives so he wouldn’t have to take care of her, even though he’s never once made her feel like that - ever.

Loki assumes that the little girl knows how he feels about her – he tells her that he loves her all the time – and that she realizes that he truly wants her to be with him.

After a certain amount of negotiation, during which he feels their thinly veiled hostility towards him, he and the family finally settle on the idea that she should be allowed to decide for herself where she’s going to live.

Loki only does so because he is very confident that she will choose him, and is utterly devastated when she decides to go with his wife’s family, instead.  He tries to make the best of it, though, for her sake, not wanting her to feel badly about leaving him since this is her choice.

She doesn’t seem to be very excited about going, though.  She doesn’t want to pack or do anything that has to do with moving.  She’s listless and obviously sad, although every time he asks her if there’s anything bothering her, she shakes her little head of red waves and curls and says in a heartbreakingly tiny voice, “No, Sir.”

When they arrive a few days later to take her with them back across the country from him, they refuse to come in, preferring to stand expectantly in the doorway instead.

He lifts her up in his arms, ruthlessly holding back his tears so as not to upset her as he hugs her incredibly tightly while kissing that baby soft cheek goodbye.  Loki murmurs quietly to her as he tries to drink in and permanently imbed a picture of her in his mind, “You remember that I love you, honeybunch.”  It’s the nickname her mother used to use for her and he consciously adopted it.  “You can email or Facetime or text me or call me any time you like, and I’ll come out to see you whenever I can.”

But her grandmother corrects him, none too gently, “Not for quite a while, please, so that she can get settled into a new routine and new surroundings.  If you want to talk to her, please contact my daughter so that she can arrange a time that would be convenient for her to be there with Lily while you do, and also before you come out and we’ll decide whether or not it’s a good time for you to visit.”

Loki frowns fiercely at the idea of being denied the ability to contact or see her, but reigns himself back in because he doesn’t want her to see them arguing, giving them a tight lipped, “Of course.”

Then he squats down and sets her on her feet, reluctantly relinquishing the little girl’s hands to her grandmother and aunt, who pull her eagerly away from him and through the open door, although her head is nearly swiveled all the way around while she toddles away from him, desperately trying to continue looking back at him.

All of a sudden, though, the little girl tears herself unexpectedly away from them, running back to where he’s still crouched down and nearly knocking him over as she practically takes flight and launches herself into his waiting arms, weeping pitifully.

With her little mouth buried against his neck and his hair surrounding her face, she wails loudly through her tears, “Pease – I don’ wanna go!  I won’ be in tha way, I promise!  I’ll be good an’ take care a’ myself so you can go on missions wiv the ‘Vengers ‘n don’ gotta stay behind ‘cause a me.  An’ I’ll stay outta your hair an’ never be a bother – pease can I stay wiv you, Daddy Loki?!  Pease?!”

He’s startled to hear her mention something about missions, but then dismisses that thought in favor of being ecstatic that she’s run back to him, his eyes closing on a blissfully relieved sigh as his arms wrap around her tightly.  Loki is surprised at this turn of events, but is also incredibly happy.  Still hunkered down, he sets her on his knee while everyone else looks aghast at what she’s said, and immediately tries to change her mind, crowding around her and touching her and talking loudly over each other in their haste to try to convince her to go with them.

But she leans away from them, clinging to Loki, tiny arms looping around his neck as she tries to bury her face against him while the other adults surrounding her close in on her.  He can feel her tiny body trembling against him, and she begins to cry louder, and he knows it’s because she fears that she’ll be taken away from him.

And now that he knows that she really wants to stay with him, Loki simply won’t have that.

He stands with her in his arms – and is, then, immediately taller than everyone else, of course – holding her very securely to him, but distinctly away from them at the same time, saying firmly, “I believe her true choice is clear, ladies.  I’m sorry that you were misled, and for any other inconvenience we have caused you, but apparently my little one thought incorrectly that I considered her to be a bother,” he turns back to her, cupping her cheek in his hand and pressing his nose and forehead to hers, “when she is my greatest joy and dearest love, and could never, ever be a bother or an inconvenience in any way.”

It’s impossible to miss how crestfallen his wife’s family is at the thought of not having her close.

So Loki turns to them, wanting to reassure them of his feelings about them, too, and proceeding to treat them much more graciously than they had him.  “But I want you all to know that you are welcome to come see her any time you like.  You are her closest relatives.  You were all close to my wife and she loved you very much, I know.  I want my little girl to get to know you all and I want you all to be a part of her life.”  However generous his first statements are, his last statement is very emphatic and does not invite any kind of argument or discussion whatsoever.  “But she will be living with me, and that is final.”

The relatives leave with obvious reluctance – after making unsuccessful, abortive attempts to cajole and coax his little one to recant, which he immediately puts a stop to.

When they’re gone, Loki takes the little girl to sit on the couch on his lap.  “I’m very, very glad you decided to stay with me, babygirl.  I would have missed you something terrible.”

She’s still clinging to him, and he rubs her back, holding her close against him.

Eventually, when she’s calmed down at bit, he leans her away from him, gentle fingers beneath her chin coaxing her to look up at him.  Going on his instincts, which were hardly finely honed in this instance, he nevertheless vowed firmly, “I don’t know what you might have thought you saw or overheard, but you were completely mistaken, little love.  I adore staying home with you and taking care of you, and I would always much rather do that than go on any old mission.”

Her eyes go round at what he’s said.  “But I hearded you talk to Uncle For ‘bout not been able to go wiv him and th’other ‘Vengers on a mission ‘cause you hadda stay home wiv me.”

Loki tapped the tip of her nose lightly with the tip of his finger.  “I don’t have to, babydoll.  I want to. You are not now, nor have you ever been, nor could you ever be any kind of a burden to me, angel.  And I will never again let anyone even try take you away from me.  You are my little girl, and I love you.  And I promise you that you’ll always be with me.”

  Author’s Note:  Here are some of my thoughts about the possibilities of where this might go:

Does the family sue him for custody?

Loki could take her to Asgard, of course.  Maybe that’s his first impulse.  But he knows that that would result – because of his previous bad behavior – in him being banned from going back, and he doesn’t want his little girl to experience banishment, too.  She’s Midgardian, and that is where he intends to raise her.

Hopefully.

And if they do try to sue, are the Avengers character witnesses for Loki – even Tony?

Part of Loki’s argument for him to retain custody is, “What could be better than for a little girl to grow up surrounded by superheroes who all love her and help take care of her?”

The family’s lawyer of course mentions the Hulk, and everyone they’ve killed, the danger, etc, especially pointing out that Loki was a danger, at one point, who attacked the very place where she’s now living.

In the end, does he adopt her and give her the last name of Laufeyson?

[orbemnews]

Catholic church abuse: Women from French order speak out (CNN) —   Lucie was just 16 when she became involved with a Catholic religious community after attending a holiday camp in Switzerland. At the time, she told CNN, she was “very, very, very alone” and looking for friends and affection. What she found at first was “really like a family,” she said. But two years later – by which time she was preparing to become an “oblate,” a lay person affiliated with a religious order – she says a pattern of sexual abuse by a charismatic priest who she considered her spiritual father began. It took 15 years for Lucie – a pseudonym used at her request to protect her family – to realize that what she says she experienced over several months in the 1990s was abuse. At the time, just 18 years old, she felt “disgusted” by the physical intimacy she says the priest forced on her but also wracked by guilt and powerless to stop him. “It was like automatic you know. He wanted to go to the end – to ejaculation – and I was just like an object for him and I had a feeling he did this a lot of times,” she said. Her story is not unique. Source Provided Lucie, pictured in 1994, says she was abused by a priest with the St. John community in Switzerland. CNN has spoken to several other women who say they are victims of the devastating sexual, psychological and spiritual abuse they suffered within the Community of St. John. For Liene Moreau, who says she was abused by a priest in France for 15 years, starting when she was a novice, or trainee nun, in her 20s, the breach of trust and of faith were the hardest part to deal with. “The psychological abuse was worse than the sexual abuse; it’s my inner life, he took my dignity, my femininity, all that I was. And still today it is very hard to have confidence in myself,” she said. The order to which the women belonged, the Contemplative Sisters of St. John, was founded at St. Jodard in the Loire region of France, in the early 1980s – one of three orders set up by Father Marie-Dominique Philippe. Laurence Poujade, a former nun who now heads a victims’ organization, says Philippe’s doctrine – and his crimes – are at the heart of the order’s problems today. “He believed that because he was involved in mysticism, everything was possible,” she told CNN. “But no, everything was not possible. Courtesy Laurence Poujade An undated image of former nun Laurence Poujade, who now helps abuse victims. “I think very often about the victims who will never be able to be heard,” she said. “We are talking about victims who don’t speak out, but what about those who went straight to psychiatric hospitals, what about those who mutilated themselves? I know of one case, her parents called me to tell she had cut out her own tongue. What can you say? What can have happened for a victim to do that?” In 2013, seven years after his death, the Brothers of St. John revealed that Philippe “had committed acts contrary to chastity with several adult women whom he accompanied at the time.” Nuns were among the victims of this abuse, the order later confirmed. For years, there were also rumors about other priests and other victims within the order. Herwig Reidlinger The late Father Marie-Dominique Philippe, founder of the Community of St. John, is seen in a file image. But the lid was fully lifted on the scandal earlier this month, when Pope Francis for the first time acknowledged the sexual abuse of nuns and other women by priests and bishops as a “problem” for the church. In one breakaway part of the Community of St. John, “corruption” had reached the point of “sexual slavery,” he told reporters, leading his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, to dissolve it in 2013. The Vatican subsequently sought to soften that characterization, saying that when Francis “spoke of ‘sexual slavery,’ he meant ‘manipulation,’ a form of abuse of power which is reflected also in sexual abuse.” But the genie was out of the bottle. And it’s clear the Catholic Church – already grappling with a global scandal over the sexual abuse of children by clergy – has questions to answer. Shortly after the Pope’s comments, the Community of St. John issued a statement recognizing that, beyond the allegations against its founder, “some sisters or former sisters have also testified that brothers and priests of the community were also responsible for abuse. Many of these brothers and priests have already been sanctioned and others are in the process of being sanctioned.” CNN contacted the Vatican for a response to this story; its spokesman would not comment on any specific allegations but did confirm that cases involving clerics belonging to the Congregation of St. John were being investigated by the Vatican. For Lucie, Francis’ words were a watershed moment. They brought huge relief – and a sense of justification after years spent struggling to be heard. “When I first read the article, it was incredible, it was like a bomb,” she told CNN, in her first interview about her experience with a branch of the St. John community in Switzerland. “I thought, like, okay, everything we tried to tell the Vatican, the Pope, the bishop, there is something happening… because sexual abuse, nobody ever say before.” Lucie told CNN her alleged abuser had misused his position of authority and the order’s central tenet of “loving friendship” to justify what he was doing. On the first occasion Lucie says the priest tried to kiss her on the mouth, she pushed him away. But she says he was not deterred. “I didn’t feel I had any power in front of him, I couldn’t say really something. When I was trying, he always had arguments to tell me that I’m wrong and he’s right. How can I not believe him?” she told CNN. “He was taking off his clothes and I saw everything – it was the first time of my life, and I was really disgusted. But I realize that on the moment I didn’t feel anything. Because I was not there anymore, it was a protection, to not feel.” Saskya Vandoorne/CNN Lucie keeps a prayer corner in the home she shares with her husband and children. Lucie has struggled to grasp why she didn’t realize what was happening at the time but now believes it was down to that disassociation and what she calls brainwashing. “It was absolutely 100% impossible for me to see him like a predator,” she said. In response to the allegations made by Lucie, a spokesman for the St. John community told CNN there had been “several accusations of sexual abuse” made towards this particular priest and that he had left the community 10 years ago. “It is now the Vatican’s responsibility to look into these complaints and a legal proceeding is ongoing,” the spokesman said. “All the measures at our disposal have been taken to remove him from the community.” The problem is not isolated to one rogue community. In recent months, CNN and several other news organizations have highlighted the abuse of nuns by male clergy elsewhere in Europe, as well as in Asia, South America and Africa. Bishops from around the world have been summoned by the Pope to an unprecedented summit this week in Rome to discuss the crisis over clerical sexual abuse. But the four-day meeting will likely focus on the shocking array of claims of abuse of children. All the women who spoke to CNN said their first struggle was simply to recognize the abuse for what it was. Only after many years did they seek justice, first within the church and then through the courts. Lucie, who is now married with five children, tried to take her alleged abuser to civil court, but a Swiss public prosecutor ruled that the statute of limitations had expired. A lawyer for the priest declined to comment to CNN on the allegations made by Lucie. Lucie, who eventually moved to Belgium and still attends church regularly in the small village where she lives, says that before attempting legal action, she had tried unsuccessfully to raise the issue with the St. John community. “After I don’t know, maybe two years, I was conscious that the community was not doing anything, I was talking about (it) with other victims, realizing that they know, that it’s been 15 years that they know, that there’s other victims. So they don’t want to do anything,” she said. Moreau, now 41 and married with three daughters, tried to take her alleged abuser to court in France, but the statute of limitations meant the case was dropped by the Tours prosecutor. Saskya Vandoorne/CNN Liene Moreau, from Lithuania, says the abuse began while she was a trainee nun with the St. John community in France. She sought a meeting in 2017 with the priest in question, to confront him, but was advised against it by the order. A brother from the St. John community sent an email in November 2017, seen by CNN, in which he acknowledged “the gravity of the abuse” Moreau suffered but said she must see a psychotherapist for her own sake before seeking contact with that priest. In letters shown by Moreau to CNN, dating from her time with the order, the priest suggests “discretion… in the future we will have to meet elsewhere … I pray that we can find clever ways of meeting.” He ends by saying that his “crazy love” for her comes from Jesus. Moreau, who is Lithuanian and at first spoke limited French, now thinks the priest may have targeted her in part because of that. “I was far from my family, in a foreign country, this is already something, and that might also be why he chose me, an easy prey in the end,” she said. The priest also made her believe that the fault was hers, as a “temptress,” she said, despite the fact she says she tried to distance herself from him. The priest in question is being investigated by the Vatican and has been removed from some of his duties, a St. John community spokesman said. In a February 7 statement, the leaders of the three orders within the Community of St. John said they condemned “every situation of sexual abuse and abuse of power” and reaffirmed “their clear resolve to eradicate any and all abusive situations.” They said the order dissolved by Benedict in 2013 – and referenced by Francis – was a small, Spain-based splinter group which separated from the St. John community in 2012 after church authorities tried to bring in reforms following Philippe’s death. The dissolution of the order has brought little closure for Moreau, who is still coming to terms with what she says happened to her. “It lasted for 15 years, and it’s now been two years since I was able to put the word ‘abuse’ on this, and still today it’s very complicated to admit that I might be a victim,” she said. “If only just for myself, I don’t want to be a victim. And yeah, I feel responsible because he made me responsible, he made me complicit in his acts.” CNN’s Melissa Bell and Saskya Vandoorne reported from St. Jodard, while Laura Smith-Spark wrote from London. Barbara Wojazer contributed to this report. Source link Orbem News #abuse #Catholic #church #French #Order #speak #Women

[loubuggins]

EKNQ Ch. 5

Author’s Notes: Hey y’all! Guess what we’ve got for y’all tonight! That’s right! An update! Be ready, because the parents are showing up in this one! I know y’all have been waiting for this for a while, so enjoy the show!

Prologue / Ch. 1 / Ch. 2 / Ch. 3 / Ch. 4

                                       Every King Needs a Queen

                                  Chapter 5: The Adults Are Talking

Maria used her dark magic to open a portal to the top of the tower. When she stepped through her breach, she had to use her arm to cover her eyes as the wind created by the wings of a dragon blew in her face. By the time she was able to see again, the obsidian, scaly form of the dragon had been replaced with the well-toned body of an obscure man. His shaggy, untamed hair was marbled with brown and grey. His deep hazel eyes dulled with age, but still burned with a heated passion for injustice. He wore his signature black coat, now stained, frayed and torn from his past battles. Around his waist was a belt that held his varies weapons that he had collected over the years.

In his arms he carried a woman, his wife and companion whom he placed gently onto the ground.  She stood just under his chin, yet her small frame was misleading to those who knew of the power that ran through her veins and the experiences that flashed behind her crystal-like eyes. She stood with a confidence that made Maria envious. Her pink hair fell to her shoulders, and still looked as bright and as soft as ever. Clearly, this woman cared more for her appearance than the man at her side. And unlike her husband, she dressed in a more comfortable fashion, sporting a whimsical, baby-blue sundress that was patterned with bright yellow carnations.

As the couple approached the younger girl, her palms began to sweat, and she fought back the urge to run her gloved hands through her hair. Any nervous habit would be obvious to this pair and showing weakness in front of ones with such authority would look poorly on her part and undermine her own role here. So, the young changeling stood straight and bit the inside of her cheek as she looked upon the older duo with an empty gaze. She extended her hand out to the man who came to her first and offered a respectful greeting.

“Mr. and Mrs. Daniels, welcome to the Teen Titans West Tow- “

“Where is she?” He growled, ignoring her opened hand. The intensity of his glare made Maria’s figurative tail duck between her legs, but again she fought the urge to react.

“We do not have a location yet on Arella, but I have already assigned – “

He rolled his eyes “Not her! My daughter! Chloe! Where is she?”

Before Maria could answer, Mrs. Daniels came forward, placing a calming hand on her husband’s shoulder and pulling him back slightly. “What Drake means is that we appreciate you contacting us, Maria. Now if you could please escort us to Chloe, we would appreciate that.” Kole Daniels spoke with a steady and gentler voice, but Maria noticed the coloring of her knuckles as she held back her husband by his arm. Somehow, her reasonable request and peaceful presence diminished some of the tension that came off between the two other alphas on the roof. Maria nodded her head, as almost an unspoken thank you to the wiser woman.

“Right this way.” She said as she turned and led them back inside.  

She led them soundlessly further into the tower, as they made their way to the special prison designed to hold even the strongest of metahumans. As they made their trip, Maria’s empathic senses picked up on the burning fury that came off the dragon knight behind her. She could smell the scent of cigar smoke, vinegar, and pepper that made up the distinct smell of anger. She clenched her fists, but kept a steady pace as she led them to their destination.

Once they entered into the small space that came between them and the containment unit, Maria took notice of the temporary prisoner inside. The pink-haired girl sat on the floor with her head against the wall and her eyes to the ceiling as if she were looking at something. Satisfied that her prisoner was being herself, Maria used one hand to pull off her glove and placed her exposed hand on the panel that was placed to the side of the door. The panel scanned her prints, then after a heartbeat, the it blinked green and the door slid open, granting them access.

Before Maria could take two steps in, Kole pushed past her and made a beeline for her daughter with open arms and wrapped them around her daughters neck.  Not at all bothered by the cuffs that dangled around her hands between them.

“Oh honey, I’ve missed you so much! Are you okay? Why is it everytime we come to visit you, it’s because you’ve gotten yourself into some kind of trouble? Oh, it doesn’t matter right now. I’m just glad you’re okay.”  She squeezed her tighter, pressing Chloe’s head into her chest.

“Mom...your boobs are in my face.” Chloe grumbled as she tried to squirm out of her mother’s grasp.

Slightly embarrassed, She let go of her daughter and stood back up to give her some space. “Sorry.”

“Hey what about me?” Kole glanced at Drake who had been stuck in place by solid crystals around his ankles formed by his loving wife.

She glared.  “Are you gonna behave?”

He rolled his eyes and put on his widest, fakest smile.  She scrunched her nose.  It would have to do.  She waved her hand and released him, but his smile quickly vanished with the crystal.  

“Dad, just let me explain.”

“Somebody better.  We get a call saying you’ve been ‘detained’ and Arella has gone missing, but no one is telling us why!”

“Don’t forget she knocked out her leader.” Maria glared.  

Drake waved her off, “Yeah I don’t care about that.”

Chloe stood up beside her mother, but kept a bit of a distance between her and her father. “Okay so about a week ago -”

“Hold on.” Drake interrupted her. It only took him three strides to cross the room. When he reached her, he held out his hand, ready to clutch the chains of her cuffs and melt them on the spot, but Chloe stepped back, out of his reach. Before he could protest, Chloe wiggled her arms, and out popped both her hands, now free of the power-canceling cuffs.

Both Maria and Drake starred at the young girl in amazement. “What the hell?” They said in unisine.

Chloe simply shrugged. “Oh come on, like you didn’t teach us how to escape power-canceling cuffs in the first week of training?” She said as she looked over at Maria who huffed and crossed her arms.

“Anyways, back to what I was saying. About a week ago, Uncle Landon came to me-“

“-oh god!” Both Kole and Drake groaned facepalming.

“ANYways he was asking me for a favor.” Drake and Kole glanced at her in horror causing her to roll her eyes. “Shut up, I kept my soul.  He told me that Arella was about to get blamed for something bad, and when that happens, I should give him a call on this.” Reaching into her pocket, she pulled out a classic flip phone about the size of her thumb. She held it out for everyone in the room to see, but Drake quickly snached it from her hand.

“That crazy mother fucker gave you my old phone.” He mumbled under his breath, but it was still loud enough for everyone to here.

“Drake, language.” Kole scolded her husband, before turning back to her daughter. “Go on Chloe.”

The younger knight nodded her head at her mother in gratitude before continuing. “So anyway, I didn’t understand what he was blabbering about at the time, but when I overheard Maria accuse Arella of murder, I just knew that was what he meant. How he knew that was going to happen is beyond me, but I did as he told me. Arella teleported us to some beach around here, and I gave him a call.”

A scary silence settled over the cell.  “M-Murder?” Kole squeaked.

“Arella is a suspect in a series of murders.” Maria spoke. “I have the evidence to back it up.”

The scary silence again this time causing Drake to begin pacing the cell, rubbing his face with his hands.  He stopped at the wall, the overwhelming information buzzing around his head like killer bees.  “So Arella is with Landon then?” Drake questioned.

Chloe answered him with a nod.

“Damnit.” Drake cursed once again, ignoring the scaving look his wife was sending him. “Chloe, what did I tell you about him?”

Chloe wasn’t in the mood for a lecture, or stupid questions, so her response was as snippy as she could get. “Don’t trust him.”

“And what did you do?”

“I trusted him.” She sighed. “But you don’t understand, Dad, Arella had no one else to turn to! If she had stayed here, she would be the one locked up right now, not me and god know what else.  Besides YOU trusted him before!”

“That was different!” He barked.  “We did what we HAD to do!  This is just two teenagers in way over their heads!!”

Chloe narrowed her now slitted eyes, but before anything could escalate further, Kole stood between them, but spoke to Maria.  “Maria, have you contacted your parents yet?”

“No ma’am, not yet. I’ll go ahead and do that now.”

“Good. As both your father and your boss, Gar deserves to know as soon as possible.”

Maria nodded her head in agreement, but before she could excuse herself to make the call, a flash of red showed up in the doorway. Bart Allen caught his breath after coming to a stop by the door.

“Hey boss, we’ve got some more visitors.”

“What? Who?”

Just then, the tower’s security system sounded throughout the tower. “Welcome, Changeling and Raven.”

“Oh crap.” Maria muttered, but begrudgingly stepped out of the room and went to accept her fate.

When she entered the common room, she was met with the backs of her parent’s who were currently conversing with the other members of her team. Her father was the first to hear her enter the room, and his worried gaze fell upon her as she approached them.  Raven followed his line of sight to her daughter, whom was quickly taken into her arms.

“Maria, thank goodness, is everything alright?” Her mother asked her in her signature gravelly voice.  

“How did you know if anything was wrong?” Maria answered with another question.

“Mother’s intuition.” Raven deadpanned.

“Plus your mother just happens to be the greatest empath in the universe, so of course she knows if something fishy is going on between one or more of her kids.” Garfield added as he stepped closer to Maria. The older man may have been as fit as a whistle, but years of battle still made themselves known. His once thick, forest green hair, now shining with grey streaks and thinning over the top. The corners of his mouth now wrinkled from every past smile and frown. His suit mirrored her own, white with purple around the sides and collar. Only his had no emblem over the chest.

His wife and mate beside him nodded her head in agreement. Her own features aging as well. Her once deep violet locks that fell past her shoulders now had grey roots, and her small body had some added weight, compliments of her child-bearing years. She had no wrinkles though, and in fact, her skin looked as flawless as ever, due in large part to her self-healing abilities. Her long, navy blue cloak just barely missed the floor and hung against her wide shoulders. She addressed her daughter with a sense of urgency.

“Now where is Arella?”

For some reason, Maria felt a spike of jealousy rise within her. Even though Arella was the problem at the moment, it still felt wrong for them to immediately worry about her baby sister before her. Would it kill them to think about her for a change? But Maria had to shove those feelings away, for there were more pressing matters to attend to.

“That’s the problem Mom. You see,” She hesitated.  Was she really about to tell her own mother that her sister, their daughter was a killer?  No going back now.  “About a week ago the guy we were after was brutally murdered before we could get to him. Just like twelve others before him. So I went to the crime scene to investigate, to see if this was more than a coincidence.”  

Raven wide eyes urged her to continue. “And?”

Maria gulped.  The eyes of her parents plead for the truth, but, how could she tell them. She inhaled through her nose.  “And while I was there, I picked up . . . Arella’s scent.” Raven let out a gasp in horror, her hands shooting to cover her mouth, while Garfield looked away in distraught, but Maria hadn’t finished. “I also found a security camera that I had Susan salvage for me.”

At this, Raven held up her hand to silence her. “No. I-I don’t want to hear this.” She looked over to her husband who was now pacing the common room floor.

“Sorry Raven, you’ll need to hear this.” The sarcastic voice of Drake Daniels came from behind Maria, forcing the girl to turn her attention to him. Raven regarded the dragon knight with a suspicious gaze. Garfield stop his pacing to do the same.

“Drake.” Garfield scuffed as he stepped in between the other man and his wife and daughter. “What are you doing here?”

“Dealing with my out of control daughter, same as you.” Garfield opened his mouth to retort, but his reply was cut off.  “I’m not here to start a fight with you. It seems that my Kid, helped your kid escape.  With him.”

“Landon.” When Raven said the name, the temperature in the room dropped and her eyes transformed into red burning slits.

Drake shrugged, “And you win the trip to Maui.”

Raven snarled, a more disturbing noise than anything Gar could do. “That bastard has been hovering around Arella ever since that night he killed Carnus.” She said through clenched teeth, the rage in her voice sending a chill down the normally tough as nails demon killer. However, it only took the calming touch of her green husband to return her features back to normal.

“Where are they?” Gar asked.

Drake shrugged again, “I don’t know-“

“-your bffs and you don’t know!?”

“Settle down!” Drake commanded, “A) were not joined at the hip and B) we don’t speak unless he visits Chloe.  But I may have a clue.” He reached into his coat and pulled out the phone he confiscated from Chloe and waved it in the air.

“Seems his royal pain in the ass gave a parting gift to Chloe.”

Gar moved quickly to try and swipe the little device, but Drake (even after all these years) was still quicker.

“Give me the phone, Drake!” Gar growled. During his years as an authoritative figure, Gar had learned how to be more intimidating and direct, but even if his temper could make the young heroes he trained wet their pants, it was useless on the even scarier monster slayer.

“We both know you are the last person Landon will talk to.” Drake reasoned.

“Maybe so, but I know he will talk to me.” Raven spoke up, slightly startling the two grown men who seemingly forgot she in the room. Before Drake could protest, Raven was already halfway to the door. “Come on, we’ll do this in the old study.”

Drake cast a curious gaze over to Gar who looked as if he were pouting like a child. Seeing that he was not going to make a move to stop his wife, Drake figured he shouldn’t either.

“I guess we’ll go see what we can find out from Landon, in the meantime, maybe Maria here can catch you up in what’s been going on here.” Drake offered to Gar as he followed Raven out the door.

Raven’s scowl never left her face for the entirety of the journey to the study, which was the very same one used by Dick Grayson himself all those years ago. Such simpler times they were, when she only had her teammates to worry about. Once they went inside the smaller room, she began pacing, mentally screaming her mantra to calm herself.  

“This all makes sense now,” she mumbled, “he’s watched us for years, waiting and plotting.”

“Don’t give him so much credit.” She wiped her head to Drake’s direction, “he didn’t plan on what Arella would do, he just knew she would snap eventually.” He lowered his tone as he reached for the phone, “just like we all did.”   She fought the urge to rip his head off, but deep down she knew he was right. With the phone dialed he turned to her.  “You ready for this?”

She sighed walking to his side. “Sure.”  He hit the speed dial.

“I was wondering when I would hear from you.” The Englishmen spoke from the other end of the line.

“Where’s my daughter?” Raven snapped, the sound of his arrogant voice making vile rise in her throat.

“Raven? I thought it would be Drake calling me?” He seemed genuinely surprised.

“Don’t worry I’m here too.”

“Aw! There’s my second favorite dragon!”

Raven ignored their banter, “Last time, where is-“

“She’s fine darling, she’s resting.”

“That doesn’t answer my questions-“

“-relax.” He said again more forcefully.  But now it was Drake’s turn.  

“You’ve got a lot of nerve involving my daughter in all this.”

“Yes, yes I’m a horrible person, I will burn in Hell.  Oh wait, I already did that.  Here’s the situation we find ourselves in.  Arella has, by my count, killed at least twelve,  all current guests of my kingdom so no worries there, and before she gets to far gone I’ve taken it upon myself to stop that.  Which you obviously FAILED to do in the last eighteen years.”

“AS IF YOU EVER GOT THE PARENT OF THE YEAR AWARD!”

Raven slammed her hands onto the table, shrieking into the cellphone producing a good three to five minutes of silence from everyone in the room, including Landon.  Drake placed a hand on her shoulder to ease her tension when Landon spoke again.

“Toushay, but you have to agree things are a bit out of hand at this point and ‘hoping’ things will get better isn’t going to cut it.”

The two were quiet for a moment as they let this new information marinate, “I’m going to put you on hold.” He hit the mute button and turned to a confused Raven. “Listen. Rav-“

“No.” She shot. “I’m not considering letting my daughter stay with him.”

“Raven, just hear me out,” his tone was as calm as he could make it. “I love Arella like she was my own.  She has been a sister to Chloe in every way imaginable, and I don’t want her to give in to Trigon’s influence as much as you don’t, but if Landon-“

“NO!” She screamed. “She is my child, and her family will handle this!”

“How? Raven, Arella killed people. I don’t know the circumstances, but it won’t look good to the League, or anyone else and you can’t protect her from that.”

Her eyes were narrow, hateful slits and her tone even and flat.  “Watch me.” She grabbed the phone, unmutting it.  “Give her back to me. NOW!”

Landon let out a growl of frustration from the other line.  “Why can’t you understand?! I. Am. Not. The bad guy!”

Once again, Raven’s tone was flat, even, and threatening, “Your a full blooded demon. You will ALWAYS be the bad guy. Now give her back to me, or you WILL know pain.”

The other end was silent for a few heartbeats.  “Darling. I already know pain. I’m doing this, because I want it to stop.” And the phone went dead.

Raven buried her head in her palms, and her body began to shake as sobs began to escape her lips. Objects around the room were encased in black magic and began floating about. Drake stood there awkwardly, as he stared at the weeping mother. The gears in his mind began to turn as he tried to figure out their next move. For now, however, he realized the best thing to do was to let his old friend mourn the disappearance of her daughter in peace. Oding the only thing he knew how to do, he reached out a tentative hand over Raven, and placed it gently on top of her silky hair. Raven stilled for a moment, as if she was reminded of the other person in the room, but then turned around and wrapped her arms around his waist and buried her face into his chest. Drake stood frozen as she continued to cry. Slowly, his arms wrapped around her own body, and he simply stood there while she stained his shirt with her tears.

Unbeknownst to them, across the ocean, sitting back in a chair as the fire of the fireplace crackled in front of him, casting a soft glow upon his body in the dead of night, was the demon king himself. He sat in his chair, staring off into the dancing flames, an old cell phone in one hand and a glass of scotch in the other. Not far from him, a young girl slept peacefully in her room, safe and sound. Just as he had promised. Yet the words of the girl’s mother rang in his ears, just as harsh as the first time they had hit their target.

“As if you ever were the parent of the year!”

His thoughts strayed from the girl sleeping in the room to an even younger girl, curled up in a peaceful slumber. Her skin white as milk and her hair dark as the feathers of a raven. And with these thoughts, a single tear left his eye and slid down his cheek, until it fell onto the phone that still read the caller-ID.

RAVEN   

Author’s Notes: So there is a lot of significance into this ending that will make more sense as we progress. If any of you read BH’s stories, you may already know what I’m referring to, so yay for you! Again, I apologize for the unplanned hiatus. It was entirely on me. I write when I can, and when I feel inspired to do so. Not only do I need time to write, I also (more importantly) need the right mood to write. So for that reason, this story may come and go in spurts, but I promise you all that BH and I will make it worth the ride!

As always, if you read it, please review it! Your support is always appreciated!

Many thanks,

L.B.

Disclaimer: Drake Daniels, Chloe Daniels and Landon owned by @bearhow2. Maria Logan and Arella Logan owned by Lou Buggins. All other characters owned by DC Comics. Story co-written by @bearhow2 and Lou Buggins.

[newstfionline]

Slavery Ensnares Thousands in U.K. Here’s One Teenage Girl’s Story.

By Ceylan Yeginsu, NY Times, Nov. 18, 2017

LONDON--Every Friday morning, as commuters arrived in London Victoria station, a teenage girl would board a train to Eastbourne, a coastal town about 60 miles outside the city.

Dressed in her sports uniform and carrying a shoulder bag covered in badges of pop icons, she tried to give the impression that she was on her way to school. But this teenager was already three hours into her workday.

Armed with a knife and carrying a large supply of Class A drugs, the 14-year-old girl had been instructed to travel to Eastbourne to sell crack and heroin.

If she failed to meet steadily increasing demands set by her boss at the time, a 48-year-old gang leader who lured her through a social media app, she was either beaten or sexually assaulted.

A report by a British government commission on modern slavery and human trafficking, released last month, described a sprawling practice that ensnares tens of thousands of people in Britain.

Many are immigrants. But the high number of victims from Britain was an unexpected shock--cases involving British citizens like the teenage girl were the third-largest grouping, after those involving Albanians or Vietnamese.

A majority of child-trafficking victims were also found to be British.

From nail salons and carwashes to farms and construction sites, thousands of vulnerable adults and children are being traded as commodities and are often subjected to violence and abuse, the report found.

“We kind of let it slip that we have vulnerable people in our own communities,” Kevin Hyland, Britain’s first independent antislavery commissioner, said in an interview. “And they are vulnerable for a number of reasons, not just because they come from poverty. It may be that they have learning difficulties, educational issues or addiction.”

For months, no one noticed as the 14-year-old girl, whose identity is being concealed for her protection because her captors are still at large, sneaked out of her apartment before dawn, skipped school and came home late, once with bruises all over her body. No one saw the deep scratches on her arms and legs when she started to hurt herself.

Her mother acknowledged neglecting her daughter at times, occasionally staying away from their home for several nights at a time and ignoring calls from her daughter’s school reporting that she had failed to attend.

Then, during the school holidays in July last year, the teenager disappeared. It was not until seven months later, after her mother said she had resigned herself to the fact that her daughter might be dead, that a detective told her that she had been kidnapped and enslaved.

“Enslaved?” the mother, whose identity is also being concealed to protect her daughter, recalled asking the officer. “I just kept repeating that word. I didn’t understand it,” she said in a London park where she often goes to try to manage a panic disorder that developed after her daughter’s disappearance.

During the months when her daughter was missing, “I thought about every possible scenario that could have happened to her,” her mother said. “But slavery? I didn’t even know that happened in England.”

Britain recorded 2,255 modern slavery offenses across England and Wales last year, a 159 percent increase from the previous year. According to the government commission, the rise suggests that, while slavery might be increasing, so is awareness among the police and public. The report also said that different agencies were cooperating better.

But a recent inspection of police practice found significant deficiencies and inconsistencies that left many victims exposed and vulnerable to further exploitation.

“Victims who come into contact with the police are not always recognized as such and therefore remain in the hands of those who are exploiting them. Others are arrested as offenders or illegal immigrants,” the British Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services found.

Analysts say that some of the most vulnerable people are those who depend on welfare benefits and lack family life and support. As a result, they are easily influenced by people who suddenly appear in their lives.

“People often get picked up when they are hanging around, either at hostels or soup kitchens,” said Anne Read, an anti-trafficking response coordinator for the Salvation Army, a charity that manages the government support system for adult victims. “And, of course, now there is the internet, which enables predators to enter people’s homes,” she added.

That is how the teenager met her captor more than a year ago, through a messaging app on her phone.

Her mother, who had just lost her job at a bakery, had cut off her weekly allowance of about $26. That caused the girl to spend less time with her friends and more time on the internet.

“I was broke, I couldn’t do nothing,” the girl, now 15, said in an interview with her caseworker by her side. “I got bored and started chatting to people on my phone, and that’s how I met him,” she said, referring to her captor, who has not been taken into custody and whose real name is unknown to investigators.

“He was really sweet when I met him,” she added with the slight stutter she developed in the months she was away. “He kept buying me phone credit, and told me he would look after me and teach me how to make money.”

The first day they arranged to meet, he took her to her favorite fish and chip restaurant and ordered the large family menu, just for the two of them.

The man was grooming the teenager to “go country,” meaning that she would become a drug runner. While most British citizens are trafficked for labor or sex, an increasing number of young people are being drawn into the drug world because of the relatively new phenomenon of distributing narcotics from urban hubs to small towns.

“What we have are criminals who are predators, and who use other people as their instruments of crime,” Mr. Hyland said. “They will use them however they can in whatever way they want to make money.”

The teenager’s boss promised her about $175 for every day she worked. The gang he ran made profits of about $2,400 a day, said her caseworker, who requested anonymity because she was not allowed to speak to the news media while the investigation into the teenager’s disappearance was underway.

In the first four months of working for the gang, she earned around $2,500 and received a new phone with unlimited data and a gold bracelet, which she still wears.

But one day last year, after making a drug run to Eastbourne, she was told by a gang member that the police had caught her on camera and were waiting to arrest her at her home in South London.

The teenager believed him.

The man, whom she knew as Ziggy, took her phone and money. He then drove her to a dark, squalid garage with no windows, where she lived for the next seven months with various drug addicts.

“Everything changed,” the girl recalled. “Ziggy started to beat me and told me I wasn’t worth anything to them anymore.”

She was then taken off the runner rotation and forced into servitude, preparing drug supplies, transferring them between houses in the area and cleaning up after the addicts who lived there.

One night, as she slept on a mattress in the corner of the cold garage floor, Ziggy appeared and lay down next to her. “First he undressed me and made me do things to him, but then he raped me,” she said, as tears streamed down her face and her hands started shaking.

“I thought about escaping so many times, but I had nowhere to go,” she said. “I thought they would either kill me or the police would arrest me.”

When members of the gang and different drug addicts started to rape her every night, she finally decided that nothing could be worse. The next day, she went to a local laundromat and asked to use the phone to call the police.

She returned home only after spending several months in a safe house undergoing a rehabilitation program. Her mother has had to move from their former home in South London because members of the gang that abused her daughter are still at large.

[colettascorner]

Failure

Solo {And that was that. I had been stupid really. I knew my father's trust only went so far. I should have known that on the first job I was the lead liaison for, I'd have a tail. That he'd be watching, checking up on me. After a week of working in the bar, apparently he'd seen enough. I hadn't done a good job of hiding my attraction to the bar owner in public. It was easy to fall for his flirtatious ways, the smile, the winks. Even as I watched him pull the same game for the groupies at the bar, my belly still fluttered when he aimed them at me, and my flirtation was reciprocal, stupidly hoping that with me, he was different. I knew, deep down, there was no real feeling on his end. How could there be? Some egos are so fragile they need constant attention, regardless of how empty or shallow, to thrive. Even if the circumstances weren't what they were, I'm sure I would have learned that particular lesson the hard way in time. It was my own fault really, I'd spent my young adult life aiming to be the picture of perfection in my father's eyes. Had kept my head down, concentrating on my schooling, knowing that with how overprotective he was, that trying to date would have been futile. Even when I'd left for graduate school, my workload was so tedious that I rarely accepted an invitation for drinks with classmates, knowing that any connections made or relationships formed would have been short lived, as I would eventually be returning to New York. This had been my first taste of independence, and not only had I blown my chance at running a piece of my father's empire, I'd acted like a besotted school girl. Hindsight being twenty/twenty, as it were, I was disgusted with myself. It wasn't that I hadn't done my job, because I had. I'd spent the week increasing the bar’s social media presence, scouted local up and coming talent, booked live entertainment for Friday and Saturday night. The place was packed from wall to wall Friday night. The numbers twice what they'd been the previous month. Saturday was even better thanks to the afternoon drink specials, cover charge for the band that night. It felt good to watch the turn around of my efforts so quickly. The bar had done a solid business before our arrangement, but at this rate, the debt to my father might be paid off even sooner than my father would consider a good thing. It was after I'd spent this Saturday night making the rounds in my fuck me heels, checking that the band had everything they needed, helping behind the bar when they were in the weeds and overall making sure things ran smoothly, that I got the call. Well, text to be exact. All it said was “Base. Now.” That was it. As cryptic as ever. It didn't matter how many times my father's tech guys told him that our phones were encrypted and safe, it had taken us forever to convince him to text at all, he still insisted on using code. Having been raised with his codes as my second language I knew exactly where I needed to go, and my stomach plummeted. I didn't know why yet, but I knew I was in trouble, my Catholic guilt kicking into high gear right along side my pulse. With a final scan around the bar, I snuck down the back hallway, grabbed my purse from the owner’s office, and made my exit. The pit in my stomach grew the closer I got to my car, and I wondered if I'd ever be returning to the bar, even as a voice whispered in my mind, that I already knew I wouldn't be. Mind swirling, I was on autopilot as I left the West End and headed for The Bronx. Base was an only Italian restaurant tucked away on a side street in a neighborhood that looked a lot different than it did when my father purchased the property. Yes, he was that cliche. By the time I parked in the back lot, I had built up my inner bravado and was as ready as I could be to face my father. Squaring my shoulders, my feet aching with every step I took, I approached the back entrance, tilted my face to the surveillance camera and waited. It didn't take but a minute for one of the security guards to open the door. I nodded at each of the tank sized me manning the door and proceeded down to my father's office. With my hand on the door knob, I closed my eyes and blew out a steadying breath. Whatever this was about, I would get through it. Or he'd have me knocked off. Either way, it'd all be over soon. Entering the office, my steps faltered when I found him, not behind his desk, but at the oval conference table, surrounded by his lieutenants. Two on either side. At the end of the table sat a manila folder. A small crease formed between my brows as I eyed it warily, not sitting until commanded. When he barked the order, I immediately moved to the place obviously designated for me, but I didn't dare open the folder until given permission. I knew exactly the behavior my father expected. In this room, he was the king holding court, and no matter my place in his family or business enterprise, right now, I was but a peasant. “Letty,” I barely contained my grimace at the childhood nickname I loathed. He knew it and any reaction from me would just play into his show of dominance. Every move either of us made in this meeting was a carefully orchestrated chess match. “While the numbers thus far are proving promising in the new acquisition you've been heading, certain behavior has come to our attention and we think it best that a few adjustments be made.” I knew sending him links to all of those business articles to prove why my ideas were sound on certain subjects, would come back to bite me in the ass one day. He sat there with his smug smirk, knowing as I did that he sounded more like a CEO than a mob boss. I said nothing, merely holding his gaze and nodded in understanding. “The proof is before you, I think you'll find it conclusive, but we would love to hear your explanation once you've looked it over.” When he nodded, I reached out, pulled the folder towards me, and opened it. My stomach immediately bottomed out as I flipped through the stack of pictures. Each one starring me and the bar owner in various spots around the bar, out front on street, working on different signs and posters. In each one we were smiling and laughing, the affection in my expression made me sick to my stomach and I didn't notice until I say each frame lined up like this, but his expression was the exact same in every one. Blank eyes, charming smile. It was humiliating, but the worst of them was the last. The owner in the back alley, with some Barbie plastic blonde pinned to the brick wall beside the very exit I'd taken tonight. It was blatantly obvious what they were doing as much as it was obvious why my father had included this picture last, with yesterday's date time stamped in the corner. Embarrassed, ashamed, humiliated, my father had driven home the final nail in the coffin, and effectively convinced me that my endeavor at the bar was over, while ensuring that I'd never be tempted to return. All I wanted to do was climb under the table I'd played beneath so many times as a young girl, my own secret fort, curl up in the fetal position and bawl my eyes out. But I couldn't. Wouldn't. Swallowing past the lump in my throat, I closed the folder, slid it back onto the table, and lifted my chin. I wouldn't let them break me. If I wanted to play with the big boys, this came along with the job. I had to handle my successes and my failures. Nothing else would be acceptable from the boss’ daughter.} I have no explanation. I obviously allowed my guard down when I shouldn't have. I have the contract and business plans outlined. I can brief whomever my successor in the position is. I'll do whatever I need to to transfer all contacts and responsibilities. {Thankful that my shaking knees were hidden under the table, I folded my hands on the table to keep them from showing my reaction. Taking my time, I met the assessing stares of each man, most of whom I'd considered uncles growing up, before finally resting on my father's eyes.} I apologize for letting you down. I can assure you that this won't happen again, but any other consequences, I will face head on. {My father proceeded to lay out the “no contact" provisions, threatening a bullet between the eyes of the bar owner and his brother, if he found out that I ever went near the bar again. The police had nothing on my father when it came to enforcing his rule of law. I sat, letting him berate me for another twenty minutes before I was dismissed. I barely stayed on my feet as I rushed down the hall and back to my BMW. If I'd been a zombie on the ride there, I was a corpse on the ride back to my penthouse. I didn't remember a thing until I unlocked my door and fell inside. Adrenaline crashed over me as I crumbled to the ground, body wracking sobs echoing in the open space. Kicking out of my now hated heels, I allowed myself the breakdown I'd been holding inside. The last two hours felt like a year as waves of warring emotions crushed me. Self loathing for developing feelings for such an obvious player, embarrassment and disappointment at fucking up the first assignment that had truly been my own in my father's business. I never wanted to set foot in that restaurant again, let alone begin to rebuild the broken trust, and beg for him to allow me to continue in the business role I'd fought so fucking hard for and not become one of the pretty girls he used to “sweeten a deal". Fear that he'd never allow it. So quickly I'd lost my way, and for what? Some pretty boy scumbag that ended up being...well, exactly what he presented himself to be, even if I wanted to believe there was more substance to him. There wasn't. I wouldn't forget that. In time, I was certain I'd be thankful for my father's heavy handed control, his pulling me from the situation before I had fallen deeper into the rouse...but for now, I'd let myself cry.} End.

[rilenerocks]

I wonder if all people are born equipped for life’s passions. And if they are, is the capacity for them the same for everyone? Does everyone start out with a genetically determined amount or is there an infinite level that is sometimes achieved and sometimes not, depending on what happens to each of us? I’ve spent quite a bit of time thinking about this. Some people seem like they’re boiling over with passion and others act so subdued that it’s hard to know if they’ve every experienced a single moment of that powerful sensation.

I think passion has lots of different connotations, both positive and negative. Some passions are conscious and others lurk below our mind’s surface. They can be enriching and growth-inducing or deleterious and damaging to our health. Passion can be enthusiasm and avid devotion. It can be overwhelming in both rage and love. It can be intense sexual attraction. It can be vehemence and anger. Probably it’s combinations of a wide range of feelings and this can be very confusing. I know that I’ve felt all types of passions ever since I was a little kid.

When I was about five, I got a chameleon. I loved it so much I squeezed it to death. What a horror. I was way too young to understand the implications of the potential for destruction associated with a positive feeling. But I learned more and more about that as I grew up. My parents told me I was born loving everyone and everything and that people loved me back. My mom said she was afraid someone might steal me, most particularly my dad’s sister, someone she detested. My older brother told me he first remembered being truly happy when I came along. Sad for him but good for me. I did love so many things with a passion. I loved my parents. I loved warm milk. I loved animals. I loved fudgsicles and chocolate popsicles. I loved playing outside. I loved school and school supplies, especially crayons, erasers and glue. So I guess I started out with my fair share of passions.

  As I got older, I extended all that passionate love to people. I loved my friends. I started to love boys. I loved sports and movies. I loved justice. So much passion. It wasn’t long before I started getting knocked around by reality. Reality was that just because I loved what I loved didn’t mean that I was going to reap big returns on my passionate investments. I loved school but after 9th grade, it mostly bored me to death and as I went off on my own to learn, my grades tanked. I had just enough natural talent to take me into college but nothing about that structure worked any better for me at that level.

  Then I realized that the just world I dreamed of may as well have been in a galaxy far, far away. The disappointment from that discovery ignited my negative passions which are still going strong today. Always something to be furious about and to fight against. Fuel for my engine.

  I loved participating in sports but that brought me negative attention. I wanted to be an attractive girl but my youthful participation brought me the nickname “moose” which had a profoundly negative effect on the joy I found as an athlete. In my junior year of high school I cut 60 PE classes and as a senior, had to make them all up, two for one, in order to graduate. On swimming days, I was soaking wet on and off for hours. But I still loved sports although I became more of an observer rather than a participant. I still have my swimming but at one point I dreamed of smashing home runs and spiking volleyballs for a long time. I made it back to volleyball as an adult, playing while pregnant. Maybe that vibe is why my daughter turned out to be an exceptional athlete in a time that was somewhat kinder to women than the days of my youth. Although not yet kind enough.  But let me stay on track here.

I was a passionate friend and potentially a passionate girlfriend when I was a kid. I fell in love easily. And I stayed there. There’s another component to my particular brand of passion – loyalty. My husband and my kids always told me I was the most loyal person they ever knew. That’s probably a fair assessment. Once committed to someone, at least in my own mind, if not in actual practice with the person I’ve sekected, I stayed put. I’m hard to get rid of once I’ve made my choices. Despite the fire that burns in me so frequently, I’m not the type to flame out. My burn is slow and long-lasting. A lot of disappointment and pain have to happen before I walk away from someone. I guess it’s fair to say that I have personal standards of how people should treat one another, my rules, for sure. But I’ll bend and accommodate for a long time before I give up on a person. Over the years, I’ve developed what I call my permanent list. I have occupants on that list who said or did something egregious enough so that I know I’ll never forget it, at least as long as my brain is functioning. But for the most part, that list is of those individuals who are beyond my forgiveness. I know that’s not a very politically correct attitude in current culture. Forgiveness is a real thing advocated around me. Being unforgiving is supposed to be bad for you, toxic and unhealthy.

Your Greatest Strength

1

Social intelligenceBeing aware of the motives/feelings of others and oneself; knowing what to do to fit into different social situations; knowing what makes other people tick.VIRTUE CATEGORY: HUMANITY

24

Forgiveness Forgiving those who have done wrong; accepting others’ shortcomings; giving people a second chance; not being vengeful.VIRTUE CATEGORY: TEMPERANCE

I took a personality trait test from a Yale-sponsored class a few months ago. You answer all these questions and a list of your character traits ranked from best to worst is generated. My best trait was emotional intelligence, followed by loyalty and my worst was the inability to forgive. Sounded right.  And it works for me. Michael was always trying to get me to let things go and be more forgiving. He said my hot rage and grudge holding was going to damage me physically. Well, look who’s still here and who isn’t? I’m living on the terms that suit me.

I guess I got the most bashed around emotionally by my first serious college boyfriend. I thought I was going to marry him. The truth is, I thought I was going to marry everyone I ever loved, going all the way back to when I was five years old. But this was the first genuinely reciprocated love I’d felt as a grownup and despite warning flags about not being ready and immaturity, I was convinced that if I fought hard enough, I could make this happen, even with evidence to the contrary popping up regularly and painfully. We were together on and off for three years. One morning after feeling that we’d had the best night of our life, I woke up to him telling me that we needed to break up and that things just couldn’t work. I was astonished, hurt and enraged. As he made his way out of my apartment, I followed him into the street, screaming at the top of my lungs that he would never find anyone who loved him the way I did and that he’d regret this decision for the rest of his life. My roommate and another friend dragged me back into the house as his metallic blue Chevy Hornet pulled away.

The fact is, he did figure that out later but by that time, I’d mostly recovered and was with Michael with whom I spent the rest of his life. Sadly, not the rest of our lives. Michael helped me rebuild myself and to believe that I could trust someone and reestablish my belief that a lifelong positive passion was possible. I’d already figured out that I could hang on to my negative passions about feminism, politics, economic justice, the health of the planet and the like. But I wasn’t sure about people. One of the places I put my positive passions was to sports, both teams and individuals. I could afford to invest myself in those without personal disappointments that had left me flattened and despairing. I picked my loyalties and stayed with them. I had favorite teams and players. I watched everything, football, basketball, hockey, swimming and became an Olympics junkie. As time went on I added tennis and soccer. I still remember the uniform numbers of those individuals who for whatever reason, won my heart. Jean Beliveau, #4 – Montreal Canadiens. Doug Mohns, #11 – Chicago Blackhawks. Doug Buffone, #55 – Chicago Bears. Fred Biletnikoff, #25 – Oakland Raiders. I could go on and on. A lot of my friends were surprised that I was so into sports, as many of them, particularly the contact ones dominated by males, seemed in direct conflict with my feminist politics. But I didn’t care what it seemed like. My personal passionate commitments had  cost me a significant amount of emotional angst. I think I was born with a fairly deep reservoir for giving but I’d come to realize that when I put myself out there, I’d best be prepared to be doing it because I needed to for me and not because of what I expected in return. I’d had a lot of disappointment from family, friends and lovers. With sports, the worst that could happen was that your favorites could lose. The pain threshold for those things was tolerable for me, easier than all the personal disappointments. At least, it always had been for many years. When the silent switch happened, I really wasn’t aware of it at all. I’ve only just figured out that my lines had gotten blurred below the surface of my consciousness because of what life dealt out to me. I was too busy in the living of it to recognize that I’d set myself up for a whole new undoing.

  So these sports. As a Chicagoan and a southsider, I loved the White Sox. I branched out and embraced the Cubs. I was a hockey fan and I sat with my dad as he agonized over DePaul’s basketball team. Except for golf, I’d watch almost anything. Eventually, tennis got my attention. I watched the women, Billie Jean King, Chris Evert, Martina Navratilova, Steffi Graf and of course, finally Venus and Serena. I admired their skills and grit. But I always loved the boys and most particularly, the ones who behaved well, rarely had tantrums or broke their rackets and in general, seemed to play against that spoiled brat type. No John McEnroes or Ilie Nastases for me.

  I liked the cool Swede Bjorn Borg, who played like a smooth machine. After him, it was Pete Sampras, who was just a kid when he started and had a long 14 year career, complete with those beautiful serves and the tenacity to keep playing after vomiting on the court from sickness and dehydration. The civilized guys. I made an exception for Jimmy Connors sometimes because he had high entertainment value. There were a few Australians thrown into the mix and the Croat Goran Ivanisevic who had sporadic talent but took forever to win the big tourney. But in the middle of Pete’s reign, Roger Federer appeared on the scene. And that was all she wrote for me.

  Federer broke into the big time as a teenager and was kind of a punk for awhile. But the tragic car wreck death of his Australian coach when he was 21 was a life changing event for him. Between that and his relationship with his older girlfriend who eventually became his wife, he pulled himself together and became who he is today, a brilliant champion, a genuinely loved public figure and a generous philanthropist. In short, my favorite tennis player.

  Federer’s been playing for 21 years. I’ve watched him countless times and always enjoyed his grace, elegance and tenacity. For most of those years I watched him and the other players during the four major tournaments, the Australian Open, the French Open, Wimbledon and the US Open. There was a lot of other tennis happening off my radar, many tournaments and point systems for rankings. I didn’t really care about that stuff. I was happy with what I saw, read articles so I had some idea of the background for the majors, and was generally content.

When Michael got sick seven and a half years ago, that was where I was at. As we processed his disease and what we knew would be a limited future, I was trying to get a handle on interests that would distract me from the constant pressure of anticipating death. Michael liked tennis too and had played for years as a young man. Often we watched matches together. But as time went by and we rode the waves of anxiety, I started to seek out more and more information about tennis. We’d switched cable tv providers and the Tennis Channel was included in our package. I realized that there were all kinds of tournaments and that Roger participated in lots of them. He was famous for holding records in places that had never crossed my radar. And we had a DVR. I started taping everything. When I had nothing to do, I started watching more tennis. I liked other players but Roger was the one. As the months of Michael’s illness progressed, we both labored under the strain of wondering how much time we had left to enjoy our life. Sometimes I drove my reserved husband crazy, wanting to talk through everything all the time. He was in treatment, often tired and in need of rest. I had lots of time on my hands but I wanted to stay nearby, soaking in every minute of life with Michael. So I turned to the box where Roger waited in the DVR. He was such a joy to watch. Healthy, easy and an amazing contrast to my precious guy who was carrying such a huge load. Over time, I decided that who needed a DVR when you could set an alarm and watch a tournament live from Australia, China or the Middle East? We didn’t really have a normal routine or schedule any more so I could make my own hours. As years went by, Federer’s wins or losses began to affect me more and more. The worst time came in 2016 when he sustained a knee injury while bathing one of his kids. He decided to withdraw from the professional tour for months while he rehabbed thoroughly and tried to decide if he could return and play at the championship level again.

  I was worried about it but at the time I was really focused on the stretch of good health Michael was enjoying so we took advantage of an excellent fall and traveled a lot. I had concerns about some signs of immune system letdown in Michael but as late as December, 2016, we were in our happy place at Starved Rock and life seemed even and predictable. Unfortunately that languorous period was short-lived. By the first week of January, Michael’s behavior was unusual. His appetite was diminished and he had some odd moments when he wasn’t making a lot of sense. We went in to see our oncologist who did some bloodwork and ordered a scan. Everything came back clean. So on we went. Things got stranger and stranger. I began to believe that there was an occult return of Michael’s cancer and began a nagging process that drove him nuts. He wanted to leave well enough alone and I didn’t. We began bickering. Right around the same time, Roger was getting ready to emerge from his medical exile and enter the Australian Open.

As days went by, Michael’s behaviors became odder and odder and I kept dragging him back to the doctors. Meanwhile, Roger was winning match after match. I was up in the night, watching him in real time and trying to avoid arguing with Michael who was annoyed with me. The doctors kept finding nothing. On January 29th, 2017, I had the pleasure of watching Roger win his first major since being injured.

On January 31st, I prevailed upon Michael to let me bring him to the ER to see if we could get him a brain MRI, the only test he hadn’t had. By that night we had the dreadful diagnosis of carcinomatous meningitis, a rare manifestation of certain solid tumors that’s becoming more common as people survive their original cancers for longer periods of time. We were devastated, Michael even more than me as he’d believed the continuing positive reports while I knew something was terribly wrong. We had a 32 day siege in the hospital and then I was able to bring him home in early March. The median survival time for this disease was 4 weeks from diagnosis. Michael hung on for almost seventeen.

  Meanwhile, the French Open began close to the end of Michael’s life and I continued to watch through June 11th. I remember thinking how ironic it was that Roger’s playing bookended the last months of Michael’s life. When July came, along came Wimbledon. I watched all of it and Roger emerged victorious. That highlighted my summer of preparing for the celebration of Michael’s life which was planned for December. When that was over, I stared down 2018, trying to figure out what to do with myself. I started this blog on January 1st. I was in the midst of planning my 50th high school reunion and also wanted to do a little traveling.

  I finally landed on the Western-Southern Open tennis tournament in Cincinnati, a chance to see Roger in the flesh for the first time. As he was getting older I figured I’d better get that bucket list item done. Additionally, the Laver Cup, Roger’s creation was happening in Chicago, at the same time as my reunion.

  I bought tickets to that as well. Both events were wonderful and I was so glad I went. Roger won some and lost some and I felt satisfied. But as time passed I found watching him, especially when he lost, to become more and more stressful. I was aware of the negative feelings but not sure what to do about them. Each match got worse and worse. This was not supposed to be my relationship with sports. I was irritable, frustrated and hostile. I could barely stand being with myself. When my son was around he tried to be comforting but I was basically so obnoxious he’d wind up leaving me to my own devices. I started thinking really hard, going back over the seven and a half year history of Michael’s disease, death and this mourning period. A lot has happened to me during that time. I spent a lot of emotional capital during those years. I spent an extraordinary amount of love on my marriage, so much that I often wonder if I can love anyone or anything new ever again. Even a pet. And then just this past week in the midst of an ugly US Open for Roger, I recognized what I’m referring to as a silent switch. Somewhere back there, as I recognized that my time with Michael was running away, I put a lot of my heart into Roger, a sports guy who was supposed to be a distraction, not someone personal. As his fortunes ebb and he gets closer to retirement I realized that my outsized reactions are more like living through an intimate loss instead of just watching an athlete’s life come to its normal conclusion. I realized that I’d transferred some of my feelings about Michael’s absence to a weird anticipatory despair about Roger’s career coming to an end. How bizarre is that? Probably not very. Roger’s trajectory is another ending, a metaphor for what I’ve been coping with for a very long time. I didn’t recognize exactly when it happened but I know it did. And acknowledging the inappropriate outsized reactions I was having helped me see the need to face this metaphor for what is – a familiar road twisted into an inappropriate level of importance. It’s time to set it back in a more normal place. Ironically, during this week of internal probing and exploring, I’ve been outside in my garden a lot. I had no trouble identifying two adult butterflies, feeding, still strong but battered by predators, perhaps by wind. But still living out there in the world. I was aware that I identified with them. No silent switching in this case. Awareness is hard and often mysterious. I’m going to keep going after it. It’s better than living in the dark. 

      The Silent Switch I wonder if all people are born equipped for life’s passions. And if they are, is the capacity for them the same for everyone?

[the-record-newspaper]

The funeral of Rhonda Hinson Part 13

The now abandoned Kirksey's Funeral Home in Valdese,  where Rhonda Hinson's family gathered to view her body and receive friends

By LARRY J. GRIFFIN

Special Investigative Reporter

For The Record

 This is a thing many people outside your grief cannot understand:  that you have not simply lost one person at one point in time. You have lost their presence in every aspect of your life.  Your future has changed as well as your “now.”—Megan Devine, as posted by Judy Hinson

 For only the third time—ever—she was wearing makeup.  She was adorned in a dark-blue turtleneck that was part of an ensemble her mother previously purchased for her to consider wearing to an office Christmas party.

Her hair had been appropriately coiffed according to her preferred style by Georgia Barker—the only hairdresser she trusted to trim its length.  But the otherwise blonde cascading locks seemed darker somehow on the evening before Christmas 1981.  Her mother, Judy, and her best-friend, Jill [Turner-Mull] shared that opinion when they first saw her.

Yet, neither Father Bobby, Mother Judy, nor their son, Robbie, could escape the bleakness of a December’s eve realization that the Yuletide gift, that arrived 12 days before Christmas in1962, had forever returned to the ethereality from whence she came.  And while families in Valdese and surrounding hamlets honed their plans for the next Momentous Morning—within an ambiance of carols, confections, and convivial conversations—a broken Father and Mother peered into the expressionless, lifeless face of the motionless form of what remained of their once-vivacious daughter—Rhonda Hinson.

What thoughts coursed through their minds? What scenes replayed themselves on their inward “screens,” like a pictorial loop of biographic photos? Doubtless, Judy played and rewound the scenario depicting the last time she saw her daughter alive.

“…She honked her horn three short times and looked over her shoulder through the back glass and waved—happy, full of life,” Judy has recounted on several occasions. “And then the next time I saw her was at the funeral home.”

Perhaps Bobby remembered fussing at her for the sand in the floorboard of her new Datsun before she left for the Hickory Steel Christmas party approximately 48-hours before.  Possibly it was then, as he stood gazing down at his daughter’s face, that he noticed a “shadow” near the right side of her mouth that he has consistently maintained was a bruise.  Or did he attempt to make sense of the enigmatic car ride Rhonda invited him to take with her about two-weeks earlier.  

She told me that she needed to go into town [Valdese] to get some gas for her car and asked me to ride with her.  So, I did.  As she was driving she said, “Dad, I have something that I need to tell you about. But if I tell you, I know it’s going to make you mad.”  Well I asked her, “Rhonda did you get a ticket or something?”  She said, “No, it isn’t that.”  I tried to get her to tell me; but, she just said that she would have to think about it.  And she never did get around to telling me what was bothering her.  I guess she just couldn’t bring herself to do it—I guess she was afraid of how I might react.

That which Rhonda wanted to divulge to her father remains—37-years later—a conundrum, wrapped tightly inside a mystery.

Maybe the astonishing asseveration that Detective John McDevitt had articulated, approximately 24-hours earlier while all were sitting in Son Robbie’s bedroom on the evening of Rhonda’s early morning murder, resonated to some degree within memory.  

“There were people in just about every other room of our house.  So, John McDevitt, Steve Whisenant, Albert Suttle, and Bobby and myself walked back to Robbie’s bedroom—he wasn’t in it at the time.  McDevitt said, ‘I tell you right now who killed your daughter,’ and he told us,” reported both Bobby and Judy Hinson.  

And it was the future sheriff of Burke County—Steve Whisenant—who admonished Detective McDevitt: “Well, let’s not jump to conclusions,” the Hinsons remembered.

“I heard what John McDevitt said; however, I always thought and did for a long time that someone else—other than whom he said—was responsible for Rhonda’s death,” Judy averred.  Understandably, the grief-stricken family was desperately grasping for any explanation; but at that juncture, there were precious few to be found.    

Friends, family, neighbors, former classmates, community members-at-large, and likely a few curiosity-seekers commenced to arrive for the public viewing and family greeting at Kirksey’s Funeral Home in Valdese.

“I was told by one of my friends that people were lined-up outside in the cold waiting to come in to see Rhonda,�� Bobby Hinson remembered.

Jill Turner-Mull recalled that Christmas Eve and the multitudes that came to pay their respects to her best friend.  “They were…” Jill agreed with Bobby; “they were lined up outside.  So many people came that night.”

But the 18-year-old’s purpose for being there was not solely to give expression to her own grief—she had been assigned a task by investigators during her initial interview with them.  

“They [law enforcement] asked me to observe the people who came through the door that evening and to report anyone or anything that might be unusual or strange, but potentially useful to their investigations. So, I stationed myself by the door—near the sign-in registry—and attempted to do what they asked me to do.  You know, I really didn’t see anything.”

Curiously, however, there was a man with dark hair who approached Rhonda’s casket and attempted to raise her right arm—as if looking for something.  One of her friends saw his attempt, walked to the casket, and stood there beside him. “Was she always like that?” he asked loudly enough for Rhonda’s friend to hear.

“No one that we talked to knew the man,” Judy explained.  “And certainly no one knew what he meant by it.  I often wondered if perhaps he was a neighbor who might have seen or heard Rhonda arguing with someone that morning and was trying to examine to see if she had some type of bruise on her arm from a fight.  I just don’t know.  No one else did.”  

Reverend Charles McDowell attended the viewing; but, Judy Hinson doesn’t remember that he actually stayed in the family room with them.  Instead, he roamed around the hallway from place to place.  “My niece [Joann Glazebrooks] overheard him talking to someone she believed was his brother.  He seemed to have been complaining that they had ‘yanked Greg up to question him’ about Rhonda’s death.”

But to her recollection, McDowell did not speak to either her or Bobby during the entire ordeal that evening.  “Don Gilbert, a boy Rhonda dated before Greg, came and hugged us and told us he was sorry.  It was only then that Greg came up and hugged us.”

Betty McDowell—the reverend’s wife—never spoke to them at all—at the funeral home or after the funeral.

“…The McDowells didn’t really show any emotion except something almost like anger toward us and Rhonda,” Ms. Hinson explained.  

As Bobby Hinson was walking out of his Hillcrest home on Christmas morning, he remembered his daughter’s prediction. “Rhonda told me that it was going to snow on Christmas Day.  We were always betting on when it was going to snow, and she told me that it would be on Christmas that year.”

Already there had been some moderate, late December snowfall in the Burke County Foothills; so, there was more than just a slight chance that Christmas 1981would be white.  “…And sure enough—as we were leaving to go to church that morning, large white snowflakes started falling,” Bobby recalled, as he gazed into the middle distance of memory.

One or two of Rhonda’s classmates volunteered to secure a cadre of pallbearers for her funeral service at Wilkies Grove Baptist Church, located in the suburbs of Hickory.  The task proved to be especially challenging since it was Christmas and so many potential candidates were out-of-town.  Ron Lail—an acquaintance and classmate of both Rhonda and her boyfriend Greg—was contacted and agreed to be of service.

Wilkies Grove Baptist Church at which Rhonda's funeral was held on December 25, 1981.  I snapped that one when I made a trip in March to find the church. Record photo by Larry Griffin

“It wasn’t an adult who called me about being a pallbearer; it was a young person, as I recall,” Mr. Lail recollected during a recent telephonic interview.  “I guess my first thought was, ‘who would have a funeral at Christmas and so soon after Rhonda’s death?’  But I agreed to do it and was actually honored that I had been asked.”

The complement of pallbearers had assembled at Wilkies Grove in advance of the mid-morning funeral service.  “We were waiting in a room for Rhonda’s body to arrive while an organist was playing.”  But with the passing of time and without an appearance of a hearse, Ron remembered that the pallbearers were getting a little antsy.  “I think that poor organist must have played that same verse about twenty times.  We were getting nervous and a few giggles could be heard as we wondered aloud about how many times the organist was going to play that same verse before Rhonda’s body arrived.”

Finally the hearse pulled up to the church, and the pallbearers were able to carry the casket to its designated place in the sanctuary.  “The church was packed,” Jill Turner-Mull recalled.  When the family came in, they sat on the left-side facing the casket. I remember that Mark [Turner] and I sat on the right-side on the front row.”

Greg McDowell also sat on the right-side of the church away from Rhonda’s family.  “Yes, he did sit on the other side as opposed to on the left with us. I just thought that he would sit with the family; but, he didn’t,” Judy mused.  

Reverend Charles McDowell planned the service and arranged for a soloist to sing a song entitled, “He.”

He can turn the tides and calm the angry sea;

He alone decides who writes a symphony;

He lights every star that makes the darkness bright;

He keeps watch all through each long and lonely night;

He still finds the time to hear a child’s first prayer;

Saint or sinner calls and always finds him there.

Though it makes him sad to see the way we live,

He’ll always say, “I forgive.”

 Reverend McDowell stepped up to the lectern to deliver the eulogy.  Judy and Bobby Hinson both recalled that the service was very brief.

“Charles McDowell preached the shortest funeral I have ever heard and did not say one thing about Rhonda, except she ate with them a few times, and he remembered her beautiful smile.”

“Of course I knew that he was Greg’s father; however, I had never met Charles McDowell until the day of Rhonda’s funeral,” Jill Turner-Mull maintained.  “But as I sat and listened to him talk about Rhonda, I thought to myself, ‘this guy must not like her.’”

Ron Lail remembered an uncomfortable unceremonious moment near the middle of McDowell’s discourse.  “He started to talk about and question Rhonda’s salvation and whether or not she had ever made a profession of faith…Being a Christian then and now, I kinda understood where he was coming from; but I thought how uncomfortable this [discussion] must be for Rhonda’s family.”  

Revonda Turner—Jill’s mother—recalled having similar thoughts about McDowell’s comments—one in particular that her daughter, Ron Lail, the Hinsons, and other astonished congregants recounted afterwards.

“I couldn’t believe it when I heard it then; I still can’t believe that a minister would say that kind of thing in a eulogy,” Jill incredulously remarked, as though she had just sustained a blow to the solar plexus.  “McDowell said, ‘I do not know whether or not Rhonda went to hell….’”

[caz-pilates-blog]

PART ONE • My Story

Childhood

Laughter is timeless, Imagination has no age, Dreams are forever. -Tinkerbell

Let me firstly start by saying on record that I had a wonderful childhood. My Mum is one of five, every one of her siblings have several children. This meant that whenever our big family came together, whether that be at a school musical, football game or dance concert, there would be instantly thirty people. I grew up with three inspiring aunties and one amazing uncle. We would all come together at family parties which were pretty much monthly, playing soccer with all my cousins on my aunties’ tennis court.

I never felt lonely.

My mum is an amazing lady who had to grow up fast due to the sudden death of her father when she was only a teenager. She left school and joined the workforce as a Nurse simply to help support my Nanna. As she grew up, for the first few years as an adult, she travelled the world as a nurse and even treated Sadam Hussains’ wife with an injection in Iran!

Later in her life, she began her studies in Law. She was in a relationship with a musician. They fell pregnant with me. Mum was taking her Law exams when she was suffering with morning sickness with me. She says that the roof in her home was leaking, she knew it wasn’t safe for a baby. So, she became a successful lawyer to fix a leaking roof basically!

To cut a very long story short, her boyfriend told her that he would be moving down to Melbourne to live with us. He sent all of his things down to the house my mum owned, he never did move though. He got his friends to collect his stuff, took all her money and never made contact with her again.

The three years with just mum and I were very special. We had a bond like no other. We would make each other laugh and be each other’s best company.

My youngest memory of my step dad was as follows; I remember meeting a kind, polished man in a Vietnamese restaurant who taught me how to use chopsticks. I felt very fancy. Our family went from a family of two, to a family of three.

Having never met my biological father, my mother would tell me over and over as a child “He has our address.

If he wanted to visit us, he would. He’s left us”. I completely understand her anger and heartbreak.

Sadly, this awareness of being ‘abandoned’ filled my mind with messages of rejection and abandonment for decades to come.

I wrote numerous letters to my biological father. Thinking that he held all the answers to my questions. I even tracked down his daughter through Facebook. I sent her a message saying “I think we may have the same father. This is my story”.

After waiting a few days, I let it go, I thought to myself “it’s probably not the right person. How embarrassing”. That was until I received a response saying that she had no idea and that she had confirmed it with him, our dad! This of course was a very confronting for both of us. For her, the surprise of a sister, for me, the shock that he was clearly still in contact with her.

After a few days of messages, she agreed to fly down from interstate to meet me.

She passed on a letter to him on my behalf. I am yet to receive any response.

I was very close to meeting him face to face thanks to his daughters’ assistance.

These were the conditions of meeting him;

1. He would have to be in a pub so that he talks

2. I would have to pay because he is an alcoholic

3. He couldn’t know I was coming to meet him.

I couldn’t help but already feel rejected again. However, I had years of questions I wanted answers to, until my Step Dad (whom I call

Dad proudly) offered his support in coming with me to Sydney to meet him. “I’ll be there if you need me.

From afar, so that you’re not alone” It was his offer of support that truly hit me at the heart and put clarity into everything.

I thought “What the hell am I thinking? This beautiful man IS MY DAD. What the hell else am I looking for? I

have never looked back and my Dad and I are closer than we ever have been.

Isn’t it liberating to let go?

What in your life can you let go of? Expectations of others? Your ego? How others perceive you? Having

control over everything? Take some deep breathes. Ground yourself and think about what you are holding

onto. What is it serving you?

[julietandcinderellavocaloid]

Broken Juliet Chapter 7

"I just don't know what to do." Rin spoke into her palms, face buried in her hands.

After the Sunday service, Brother Fukase asked Rin if she would be willing to stay a few hours to help him reorganize some files. As Rin couldn't work on the farm anyway due to the village's no-work on Sunday law, it wasn't as if Leon could prevent Rin from volunteering her time when she shouldn't be using it in his farm. Rin took advantage of the time away from everything, and Brother Fukase took advantage of the time to talk to Rin about what had been weighing so heavily on her heart that she barely paid any attention to the service.

"Now, I really do like Nero," Rin continued to mumble. "I might even love him. But what if Luki's right? What if simply by being with Nero, I'm bringing him down?"

"Then I suppose you have to let Nero be an adult and make his own decisions," Brother Fukase stated, not unkindly, as he pulled out a record file from the previous year. He bopped Rin on the head with it, and when she looked up, he offered the file.

Taking the pile of documents from the pastor, Rin began to sort through them as she admitted, "I'm afraid Nero's going to wake up one day and realize that Luki's right. What if he doesn't want to be with me anymore? Worse yet, what if he realizes this after we get married? We'll be stuck with each other by then. Would it be worse to lose him, or to live with him when he resents my very presence?"

"I believe you might be overthinking this," Brother Fukase replied after a few minutes, during which time Rin took a few calming breaths and began to work in a futile attempt to take her mind off her anxieties. "All of your worries are based on what Luki said. Did Nero say anything similar or acted in any way that might imply Luki may be right?"

Face burning, Rin struggled to admit, "No."

"Then what makes you think Nero will change his mind about you one day?"

"He said so himself that his wants might change one day, that it's unlikely he'll want the same things in ten years that he wants now."

"And you fear that you might be one of those wants that will inevitably change?"

Too ashamed to admit it, Rin nodded.

Sighing, Brother Fukase set his own file aside and said, "I won't bother reassuring you of things I can't promise. You're too smart to believe what I say simply because I say it."

"I'm just too analytical," Rin muttered.

"Which isn't a bad thing," Brother Fukase replied. "However, what I can tell you is to stop and ask yourself whom you believe. Luki, who has always gone out of his way to make you feel miserable about yourself, or Nero, who finds worth in you and shows his love for you daily? I can't guarantee that Nero will never change his mind about you, but at the same time, Luki can't guarantee that Nero will in the first place. I'm sure Nero himself can't say anything for certain, even if he fully believes right now that he will always love you and will always want to be with you. People are complex, selfish beings, and we're quite fickle too. However, will you still feel the same way about Nero in ten years? What if you're the one who wakes up one day and doesn't want to be with him anymore?"

"Do you think I'm going to be the one to change my mind?"

"Rin, I think nobody knows what the future will hold. Loving might be a mistake, but so can not loving. Both are chances you'll have to take without knowing for months or even years if it was the right decision. When it boils down, it really comes to which you will regret more. Would you rather regret loving Nero, or giving up on him before he can hurt you?"

Digesting Brother Fukase's words, Rin worked silently through folder after folder. His words simmered in the back of her mind. Whenever Rin took a short break to rest her eyes, she brought what was said back to the front of her mind to ponder it further. She would stick her hand in her pocket and feel the pendent Nero had given her as she thought about it all. Ever since he had given it to her, Rin carried the pendent everywhere, and she didn't deny how happy she was to have physical proof of Nero's love for her.

"I just don't want to get hurt," Rin confessed as she and the pastor came to the last of the documents. Many had already been shredded or thrown away. Rin tried not to think about how some people could toss out others just as easily.

Even without speaking on the topic for the past few hours, Brother Fukase didn't have to ask Rin what she meant. "Getting hurt is a part of life, whether or not we like it. Even when it feels like it, getting hurt isn't the end of the world. If we treat our wounds right, they make us stronger than we were before. If we know the person who hurt us truly loves us and never meant to hurt us, it can be an opportunity to work through an issue and make that relationship stronger. On the other hand, if the person who hurt us can't or won't admit to their faults, chooses to blame you for their feelings and actions, or even takes pleasure in hurting you, then you know that's a relationship from which to walk away. Not that it will be easy, of course. If you want to live, you have to risk getting hurt. If you never put yourself in the position to get hurt, you won't truly live. Tell me, Rin, are you the kind of girl who would rather live and risk getting hurt, or stop living to never get hurt?"

A smile, albeit a small one, grew on Rin's face. Setting the file she held aside, Rin said softly, "Sometimes I wish you were my father."

"You have a Father who loves you more than I do," Brother Fukase gently reminded her. "Although I won't deny that I think of you as my spiritual daughter."

Unable to stop herself, Rin studied her blood rose tattoo. Had a cerulean butterfly been placed there instead . . . Rin never tried to dwell on how different her life would have been. Maybe her father would actually love her, or maybe he would still believe her to be the curse who took away his son and wife. Leon may have fathered Rin, but he wasn't her father. Not the way this older man who took pity on an eleven-year-old Juliet all those years ago was.

"If it's any consolation," Brother Fukase then said, bringing Rin's attention back to reality, "Nero had asked my blessing for your hand in marriage. Not Leon's. Regardless to whom he will have to pay the bridal price, Nero knows you enough to know whose blessing you would want most."

"Nero asked for your blessing?" Rin, filled with both excitement and disbelief, breathed the words. "He wants to marry me? Did you give him your blessing?"

Laughing, Brother Fukase replied, "Yes, he did. Yes, he does. Yes, I did."

"And you just gave away the surprise like that?"

"Actually, he asked me to talk to you first to gauge your reaction at the idea of marrying him." Brother Fukase picked the file back up and seemed to inspect it with a new purpose as he smiled. "Looks like you're not the only one afraid the other will change their mind."

Although Rin didn't volunteer to help out of hope for monetary gain, Brother Fukase still gave Rin three coins for her afternoon of work. One coin hidden in Rin's shoe, she gave the other two to Leon without his first having to ask. It was better to keep her father in a good mood when Rin wanted some personal time.

"There's my girl." Nero greeted Rin with a kiss on the nose, which never failed to send Rin giggling after he ran to meet her halfway on the property. "How was your afternoon with all that reorganization?"

"Tiring, but it's done." Rin linked her fingers with his. "Brother Fukase told me something interesting today?"

"Oh?" Nothing about Nero's demeanor gave away that he spoke with the pastor on potentially marrying Rin.

Sensing an opportunity here, Rin said, "But never mind that. I was thinking about your little cottage and potential family."

"Were ya now?"

"Yes. Turns out, I want something different."

This got Nero to halt in his tracks, causing Rin to stop when her hand pulled against his. She turned to him to see his smile fall. When he spoke, his words had a strangled sound to them.

"What is it that ya want instead?"

"To see Artemis outside of this tiny village. To ride in a hovercraft at least once in my life. To make a friend or two with fellow Juliets, even if they are short-lived friendships." Leaning closer, Rin whispered in Nero's ear, "Then to settle down in a cottage and start a family with the man I love."

Before Rin could pull away, Nero wrapped his free arm around Rin and crushed her against himself. Rin cried out in surprise, but she didn't try to push away. Her hand still clasping his, Rin sank into his body and soaked up his warmth. There was safety in Nero's arms. Whenever he held her like this, Rin couldn't believe there was anything left of which to be afraid.

"Ya stinker," Nero said into the top of her head. "Ya had me going there for a second."

"Oh, those are real wants," Rin replied, rubbing her cheek against Nero's collarbone. "It would be nice to have adventures before settling down, even if it can only ever be in a dream."

"I was afraid ya were going to break up with me."

"Quite the opposite, my love." As much as she didn't want to, Rin pulled away from Nero, but she only pushed back a little so she could make eye contact with him. Feeling more confident and sure of herself than she ever had in her entire life, Rin declared, "To marry Akita Nero."

Her words stunned Nero into silence. When her want finally registered, he grinned and replied, "To marry Kagamine Rin."

"The answer is yes."

"I didn't even ask ya yet."

"You don't need to. The answer is still yes."

"Would ya please just let me ask?"

"Okay, fine."

"Kagamine Rin, will ya marry me?"

"Hmm, I don't think I will."

"Rin!"

"I'm kidding! Of course I will marry you!"

Throughout their whole exchange, Rin and Nero couldn't stop smiling and laughing like idiots. Nero leaned over so his forehead touched Rin's. For a minute, they stood together like that – Nero's arm wrapped around Rin's waist, Rin's forehead pressed against Nero's, and their hands joined at the sides. Their breaths mingled in the air. All the doubt Rin had felt the past few days was gone as if it had never been.

"Can I . . . can I kiss ya?" Nero then asked so softly Rin wouldn't have heard it if she wasn't already so close to him.

Opening her eyes, Rin giggled at the sight of Nero looking so flustered. His face and neck were beet red, but he still maintained eye contact as he awaited her answer. He left the choice as Rin's to make and Rin's alone.

Rin didn't have to think about it before she answered, "Yes, Nero, you can kiss me."

Slowly at first, Nero drew closer. Unsure herself, Rin did the same. It was clear right before it happened that neither of them were experienced in the art of kissing.

Do I close my eyes or keep them open? If I close them, how will I make sure I don't miss his lips? Oh, God, where do I put my teeth?!

Yet the moment their lips met, thought went away as instinct took over.

Rin fell forward, her eyes shutting as well. It was just a simple, innocent kiss, but Rin's heart exploded in her chest all the same. She breathed Nero in as she was filled with a sense of . . .

Nothing.

The kiss was over quickly. Nero pulled away and now kissed the top of Rin's head. Eyes still closed, Rin tried to process what was happening to her.

Her excelled heartrate had less to do with feelings of ecstasy and more of the lingering anxiety from preparing to kiss. Rin knew kissing wouldn't completely change her feelings, but she knew she was supposed to feel something in the moment. Instead kissing left her feeling nothing at all.

Oblivious to her internal turmoil, Nero said against her forehead, "I love ya, Rin."

Despite how she felt, Rin didn't doubt herself the slightest as she returned, "I love you too, Nero."

"Two hundred and fifty coin!" Rin exclaimed in the barn that night after Nero had come to her "room" after talking with her father. "Nero, that is too high a bridal price for me."

"Don't shout or you might attract attention," Nero said, placing his hands on Rin's shoulders and rubbing up and down.

"He's only charging such a high price because he knows you'll pay it," Rin continued to argue, although she did lower her volume. "The average bridal price for an Alice is one hundred and seventy-five; my father shouldn't be able to charge any higher than that for a Juliet."

"Technically, he can charge whatever he wants," Nero gently reminded her. "He could use your caste as an argument that as his property, he can charge whatever price he deems necessary as if my marrying you is a business deal."

"But it isn't!"

"Of course it isn't, but even if we went to the law, whose side are they going to be on?"

Knowing Nero had a point, Rin pressed her head against his chest and moaned, "It'll take you years to earn that much! Not to mention what Father is already taking out from your pay for your food and lodging."

"Rin, neither of us are marriageable age yet," Nero said, wrapping both arms around her small shoulders and resting his chin on the top of her head. "It's already going to take years."

"You'll be eighteen this November, and I'll be eighteen in a year-and-a-half. That's not years."

"Yes, but the legal marriage age in most other districts is twenty-one. If we're going to leave this village as husband and wife, we need to at least be that age. Otherwise, officials in other districts won't see our marriage as valid and try to return you to your father. We have enough time for me to save up for us to marry, move away, and begin life elsewhere. Sure, a lot of it will be just scraping by, especially in these tough times, but we have plenty of time to prepare. We can practice scraping by now."

"As if we aren't already." Pushing away from her fiancé, Rin climbed onto her mattress and dug her hand into the small hole in the side. She pulled out her bag and stretched out her arm to hand to Nero. "I have been saving up since I was thirteen. For the longest time I dreamed about running away, and when this bag was full enough, I was going to do it. Now . . . you need the money more. Father won't give me a coin to contribute to our saving for our future, but I can offer everything now."

"No, Rin." Nero reached out, but only to push the bag back towards Rin. "You shouldn't have to spend a single coin on your own bridal price."

"But it'll be ages before you save up enough for both the bridal price and to move away." Rin offered the bag again. "Please, Nero, let me help."

"You can help by keeping the bag yourself and filling it with whatever you can." Nero again pushed the bag back to Rin, and she didn't try to offer it a third time. "The bridal price shall be mine to bear. You can contribute by helping save for our moving away. After all, hovercrafts aren't cheap to ride, and that is on your list of wants."

Smiling in spite of herself, Rin set the bag aside and said, "Okay, I'll do that. However . . . it just seems too long a wait. Will we still feel the same when we're in our twenties?"

"Jacob worked seven years for Rachel, the time feeling like only a few days to him because he loved her so much," Nero replied, cupping Rin's cheek. "Believe me, Rin, the time will fly by, and we're going to be more in love then than we are right now."

Unable to stop the smile from growing on her face, Rin said, "I believe you," and even though it wasn't her favorite thing to do, Rin leaned forward and kissed Nero on the lips.