Tag: Worm

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Home three had been the breaking point.  Two foster siblings, a single foster-mother.  She’d overheard her caseworker saying that the new foster-mother would be a disciplinarian, the only person that might be able to turn Rachel into a civilized human being.

Oh jeez.

And the second home wasn’t bad enough? What fresh hell is Little Rachel in for now?

And is it going to be what causes her trigger event?

Bitch’s opinion, years later, was that this had been a retaliation, a punishment inflicted on her by the caseworker for the countless trips to school or the home to deal with Rachel.

This isn’t Arthur Poe. Arthur Poe is just incompetent and worse at keeping children safe than a jar of mustard. This is worse.

If Bitch is right, of course.

She hadn’t believed that her foster mother could be more of a disciplinarian than her second set of foster parents.

Yeah, that got my eyebrows up too.

Realizing the nature of her situation had been unpleasant.  The foster-mother brooked no nonsense, and had a keen eye for every failing and mistake on her children’s part, quick to punish, quick to correct.

Ugh.

If one of her children spoke with their mouths full, she would snatch that child’s plate away and dispose of the contents into the trash can.

Ugh.

Never the carrot, always sticks.  Rachel was made to attend school, then after-school make up classes, with piano every other day, as if she couldn’t be bad if she didn’t have the time.

Uuugh.

…and here I thought reminding me of Chat Noir was Taylor’s job, not Rachel’s.

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Unable to keep the feelings bottled up within her, she screamed until she couldn’t breathe any longer.  Then she took a deep breath and screamed again.

Even though she screamed until it hurt, it was tiny and insignificant compared to everything she wanted to convey.

Seriously, though, this is arguably still more healthy than bottling it up.

Though of course, that’s not the point here. The point is life sucked for Rachel.

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Then the foster homes.  Home one, where the parents were kind, but lacked the patience to deal with a little girl who child protective services had labeled a borderline feral child.

Hrm.

Her foster-sister there had been a mongoloid that stole things, breaking or ruining what she couldn’t take for herself.

Not exactly a good term to use, but this is from Rachel’s perspective. I feel like this is an example of Wildbow writing the character rather than him actually using this word himself, much like the Mrs. Knott situation back in 2.2 was supposed to be according to some of the asks I got about it at the time.

Basically, it seems a lot more clear this time why this description is here. Maybe that has something to do with the fact that it’s an Interlude, and maybe the fact that I’m more familiar with Wildbow’s writing and personality at this point, but I also think the phrasing and formatting has something to do with it – it’s italicized, emphasized, implicitly made a deal out of, whereas the Mrs. Knott description was written straight as if it were completely normal to think/say/write something like that. Granted, part of Wildbow’s point may have been that to Taylor, it was, but I think that might’ve contributed to it looking like it was that way to Wildbow as well.

(Incidentally, I realized recently that it’s plausible that my liveblog reminded Wildbow to go change the Mrs. Knott section. I do know he was reading my liveblog around the time I received the news that it had been fixed.)

Rachel had responded the only option she could think of, attacking the girl who was three years older and fifty pounds heavier, leaving the girl bloody and sobbing.

Well, that answers one question: Rachel was kind of unstable even before she got her power. “borderline feral”, even before her power took that up to 11.

At least I think this is before she got her power. I would’ve thought we’d get a mention of the incident we learned about in 4.1 if it wasn’t.

That might be coming up, actually.

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I was going to say I imagined Rachel in the last paragraph as being maybe nine, but upon further research–

(no, really, research)

–a nine-year-old girl would probably be too tall for "standing on a chair to reach the sink and stove-top” (I literally pulled out a measuring stick to compare the heights this was giving me with my kitchen sink), so I think she must’ve been even younger. Five or six, maybe?

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So she got by.  Until the day her mother didn’t come home.

Welp. So what happened? Drink ‘n’ drive accident?

Somehow I feel like we won’t find out.

The food in the cupboards had disappeared, even the cans of pineapple, pears and nuts in foul-tasting syrup that had been left behind by the apartment’s previous residents.  Desperate, terrified to leave the apartment in case the fifteen minutes she spent looking for food were the same fifteen minutes her mother stopped by, she’d turned to trying to cook the rice, standing on a chair to reach the sink and stove-top.

Aww.

After pouring the rice into the water that had been sitting on the hot stove, she’d accidentally brought her arm down on the arm of the pot, and tipped it all over herself.

Ouch.

In retrospect, it was a blessing that she hadn’t known that the water should be boiling.

…ah, yeah, that helps. Still sounds like it was hot, though, even if it wasn’t quite boiling.

Still, it was hot enough to turn her skin pink and leave her screaming enough to drive the neighbors to call nine-one-one.

Yeah, ow. Must’ve been loud.

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Hm… I’m sorry, but right now I’m somewhat sleepy and fairly hungry (waiting for some food in the making as we speak), so I’m not sure I’m up to liveblogging tonight.

See you tomorrow (Saturday), or Sunday if the next D&D session ends up being tomorrow instead of Sunday. 🙂

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Why, Bitch wondered, are they happier than me?

…did I speak too soon?

Maybe it’s just because I’ve been getting more and more into MLP:FiM fandom stuff recently, but it seems to me that if this is actually the case, the answer may be friendship. Human friendship.

But with the way Rachel’s brain works, shouldn’t dog friendship be about as good, if not better?

Unbidden, the answers came to mind.

She remembered living with her mother.  She couldn’t even remember the woman’s face, but that was little surprise.

Ouch.

Mom had worked anywhere from three jobs to none, but she spent little time in the apartment.  When she was home, she was either drinking in her room or partying with friends.

Ahhh.

I guess Rachel had to largely take care of herself even before she became homeless, then.

Little Rachel’s questions or attempts to get attention were met with anger, rejection.  She would be pushed away or locked in her room.

Ew. This is the kind of parent whose face doesn’t deserve to be remembered.

Better to stay quiet, watch for an opportunity.  If her mother passed out drunk, bills could be taken from her wallet, secreted away for later purchases of bread, peanut butter and jam, milk and cereal or orange juice at the corner store.

…not a bad idea, honestly, when it’s like that. Until it gets noticed, of course.

Then it becomes trouble.

If there was a party, and if she was successful in keeping from getting underfoot, she could often snatch a bag of chips, a box of ribs or chicken wings, to eat under her bed or on the roof.

I like the mental image of rooftop Rachel, even though the circumstances prompting it are unfortunate.