#for what it's worth sunshine was his nickname for his wife. so my girl lives on. it will be...very sweet

[meredoubt]

I literally just recruited you. Down, boy.

Apparently Sonny's sopping wet nerd musician vibes have bewitched the most fuckable man in the Commonwealth. Hilarious that prior to getting frozen in the vault, the only person who ever flirted with him was his literal wife.

[ciggylungz]

Miss Ginger

Miss ginger

Blurb night- 2.5k

(request: can you plz do something about Harry being all soft with his kids?)

 -----

Harry had always been a family man. Ever since he was a little boy he dreamed of having his own family, couple of kids, a nice family home with a big back garden for the little ones to run around in and him and his wife to attempt to grow some fruits and veg and maybe a few sunflowers or daisies. Simple, modest, pure and quaint but most of all, happy.

The day Harry met Y/n he knew she was special. She had this aura that he wanted to wrap himself in like a blanket. A laugh as pretty as song birds in the morning, a heart of gold, quick wit and full of talent. He knew she was going to be his wife someday, and he swears the day she said yes when he got down on one knee his heart grew 3 times its size.

The pair planned their wedding to be an intimate, beautiful event and with the help of Harry’s lovely mother Anne and Y/n’s combined work they were able to pull it off. They had decided to invite their parents and siblings, their closest friends- which included Harry’s former bandmates who made sure to embarrass the newly wed man during their best man speech- and all of Harry’s god children as well as their parents.

Harry wasn’t shy about crying when he saw his bride walk down the isle towards him, her dress was a simple silk fitted gown with delicate trimming of lace. Y/n chose to wear the same pearl earrings her mother had worn at her own wedding and a diamond necklace Anne had gifted her for the occasion. He really couldn’t help the waterworks making their way down his face as he took in her beauty, he stayed weepy through the entirety of their vows a huge smile across his dimpled face when he finally lifted the vail over her head giving her the first kiss as a married couple. She was his, and he was hers and the pair couldn’t be more smitten for each other even as they stand where they are now nearly 4 years into their marriage.

Over the last 4 glorious, joyful years of being fully committed to each other, sharing a surname and living as a unite the pair had welcomed 2 beautiful children into the world. Alfie who was nearly 3, he was conceived only around 6 months into their marriage yet they couldn’t have been more elated to find out they were expecting. The second was their little girl Rosana that they affectionally called by her nickname ‘Rosie’ and she was now coming up on 10 months old, she was starting to become increasingly mobile already such a bubbly happy little girl who had her dad wrapped around her tiny chubby finger.

__

Harry was currently on a break, just finishing his first solo tour finally getting some downtime to be home with his family and he couldn’t be happier. He loved every part of fatherhood, he enjoyed getting up in the morning and starting the little ones routines. First Harry would go downstairs, putting a kettle on while taking some breastmilk y/n had pumped from the fridge to warm up, when both of those were taken care of he’d migrate back upstairs into his sons room where he’d usually find his little guy sitting up in his new big boy toddler bed playing with one of the various stuffed toys on his bed as he waited patiently to be gotten up. Harry adored the way his son would perk up when he walked in, opening the toddlers curtains to let the sunshine in giving him a nice morning cuddle before taking him to the bathroom to change out of his pullup into his new big boy underwear since y/n and Harry are finally reaching the tail end of potty training their first born. It had been a struggle, yet every time their little boy danced around with a sticker on his shirt for going on the potty it was worth every bed wetting incident, and all the terrible two’s tears that came with the teaching. After he had him changed, he tried his best to tame the boys hair. The little tyke inherited his fathers chocolate curls unlike his sister who wore a head full of ginger ringlets.

After all of the hygiene tasks were complete, he’d serve the boy his breakfast, steeping his wife and him a cup of tea using the remaining warm water to heat the breastmilk in for when Rosie decided to greet the day. Harry didn’t mind giving his girl a bottle feed so his wife could get a little extra sleep in the mornings, opting to nurse during the day and before bed pumping whatever’s left to hold Rosie over till her mother wakes up.

Unlike some people, when Harry heard the baby monitor start to go off with the cries Rosie gives when she first wakes up he smiles instead of groans. He didn’t get angry when his kids cried, he was actually good at reading the cry’s instead of getting frustrated which always helped calm it down quickly and his little girl would always have a little cry when she’d wake up and think she’s all alone.

As soon as her daddy opened her nursery door the little girl stood up in her cot, balancing herself by gripping the railing to get a good look at who was coming towards her. once the morning light was shining in from Harry opening her curtains the tears stopped and a sniffling nose and big gummy grin was shining on her face, a contagious smile at that.

“Good morning sunshine!” the man raised his voice a few octaves, a big grin on his face as he picked her up from her bed giving her a nice hug as he swayed back and forth. “Did yeh have a good sleep, miss ginger? You look very beautiful this morning my girl, always take your shirt off when yeh sleep don’t ya’ silly girl? I get it girlfriend, sometimes you gotta let it breathe babe. C’mon think it’s time for a nappy change and a bottle hmm?” the little girl giggled at her father, bouncing in his arms and babbling incoherently whilst her dad cleaned her up and got her ready for her morning feed.

Harry set the baby in her bouncer, putting the milk into her bottle checking the temperature on his wrist before giving it to the still topless baby. It was easier to just leave it off during the morning snack, she was a rather messy little girl since she always wanted to hold her own bottle now often letting it dribble onto her tummy as she removed the nipple from her mouth to babble at her father. She always had a lot to say, even if no one but her knew what she was on about, no one had created a baby talk translation app yet so until then her passionate rants wouldn’t be understood.

Alfie was at an age where he wanted to be independent more, he reminds everyone how he’s a big boy, whenever he puts his own dish in the washer or screws the top onto his sippy cup by himself. Both his parents found it absolutely adorable and humorous as well.

__

When Harry heard the pitter patter of his wife coming down the stairs around 45 minutes after he’d got the kids up, a soft smile etched itself onto his face. He swears every time he sees her, no matter what state she’s in he still finds her breathtakingly gorgeous. Angelic even. Even when he had pulled Alfie out of her as she pushed, he still found her beautiful. Nothing would ever change the love and attraction he felt for his wife.

“Mornin’ love, sleep well?” the man brought his wife into his arms, giving her a warm hug and a kiss on the crown of her head. “Mhm, thank you for gettin’ up with the kids so I could get a few extra minutes of rest. Love yeh h.” she stood on her toes to peck his lips, this far into a relationship and being parents a slightly morning breathy kiss didn’t bother them in the slightest. After you’ve changed some ungodly diapers, smells don’t affect you the same anymore.

“no problem, had an easy morning Alfie was good about brushing his teeth and me and Rosie had a nice cuddle. She woke up shirtless again, I’m starting to get her vibe think I might start just being half naked all the time.” Y/n chuckled at her husband, sipping her tea slowly before responding. “At least it was just her top this time, last week when I got her up she had taken everything off. Had to do an extra load of wash after that one. Silly little girl.”

The couple could fawn over their kids for an infinite amount of time, but a thud from the living room disrupted their banter. The two wore matching raised eyebrows while venturing into the room, being met with the sight of Rosie’s bottle tossed at the wall and the girl herself holding her feet up with her little hands in a split position while still strapped into her bouncer chair.

“Hey missy, throwing things isn’t nice. C’mon time to get dressed, can’t have nakey babies crawling in the garden can we? Neighbors might think we aren’t watchin’ after yeh well enough.” Her mother unstrapped her, bringing her to her chest to kiss her cheeks, her father deciding to chime in, “I think with that chubby tummy and those chunky thighs they’ll know our girl is more than taken care of.”

y/n bounced the baby in her arms, cooing at her and mocking Harry’s words with a baby voiced ‘is that true?! Rosie are you a chunky lady?’ which got them a chorus of baby laughs from the infant.

 Once y/n got both of her little ones changed as well as herself cleaned up and changed for the day, she took them back downstairs where their father was sitting on the couch glancing between his phone and the tv screen as he shoveled some cereal into his mouth.

Alfie made a b-line for his dad, excited to show him the outfit his mother had dressed him in for the day.

“Daddy! Daddy look! I got clothes on, mummy says I look handsome! Look I got turtles on my socks, daddy look!”  the little boy was over the moon about his clothes. Y/n had chosen some toddler size sweatpants, Alfies favorite t-shirt- a Gucci one Harry had got him which his wife thought was insane to dress a messy 3 year old in a 250 pound shirt, but their son loved it because his father wore the same brand- and some socks with little turtles as the print on them. It was going to be a pretty chill day at home so there was no need for fancy clothes.

“Oh my gosh! Bud you look very handsome, look at my dapper boy! Gimme five, big guy” Harry held his palm in the air, his son jumping to smack his much smaller one to his fathers, beaming from all the praise he’d gotten from his doting parents.

When Harry looked over at his wife holding his daughter his smile got even bigger. There stood his beautiful bride, clad in a pair of his black socks she liked to steal, some comfy adidas sweats and a t-shirt Harry had given her years ago. Her hair was in a sloppy bun, lips slightly shiny with some lip balm and only one earring in since Rosie had snatched the other stud from her right ear and tossed it somewhere Y/n too caught up in her children to even remember to take the second one out even after 2 weeks going by now.

His daughter was in a yellow polka dot onesie and her hair was in a little whale spout on the top of her head. His girl’s looked stunning in even the simplest of clothes, they were his angels and he adored them.

“And look at you girls! Little red head, you look dashing in that onesie! Red carpet ready my girl. And you miss yummy mummy, are stunning today. C’mere I want kisses from my ladies don’t be stingy.”

Y/n couldn’t help but laugh at her husband, even when she looked like she lived in a alley behind a gas station he still made a point to make her feel beautiful. Of course, she adored the way her husband talked to their baby girl too, they had a long talk while she was pregnant with her where Harry vowed to always build up their daughter from infancy till the day he died. No matter how old she is, what she was wearing, if she was covered in gunk from the sandbox or in her future prom dress, he promised to always let her know she was beautiful and loved. Harry never wanted his kids to feel any less than supported, validated and loved.

 It was around 1 in the afternoon when Rosie woke up from her first nap, nursing while Y/n and Harry sat together on the couch playing with Alfie and his blocks. The family had a quick bite to eat, hanging out just enjoying each other’s company. Y/n handed their daughter to Harry for him to burp her so she could refill Alfie’s sippy cup and grab both her and Harry some water.

After distributing the beverages she sat on the floor, playing with both her kids and holding Rosie up by her hands so she could dance around in her mothers grip. She loved to dance, she was always on the move crawling full speed everywhere and always squirming whenever she heard her fathers music.

Today the little girl had more in store for her parents, taking them both of them by surprise when she hoisted herself up to cruse holding onto the couch before looking right at her mother suddenly taking her first steps towards her.

Harry and Y/n both gasped, eyes wide and mouths showing huge grins while starting to cheer their baby on waving their hands and praising her whilst the baby took wobbly steps to her mom flopping into her chest before she was lifted in the air and spun around, excited cheers from the entire family as they celebrated her milestone.

“You’re walkin’ now Rosie! My big girl! Oh my gosh I’m so proud of you princess!”

Y/n tossed her into the air gently, catching her then setting her back on her feet letting her walk to her dad who was now in full blown celebration mode hands waving in the air while he cheered. His little girl toddled towards him, squealing as he scooped her up and kissed all over her face.

These were the moments he dreamed about his whole life, and he swears the dream didn’t even compare to the reality now. He’s never been happier.

[let-me-love-you-loki]

Yearning Too Late

The wailing had stopped. Thank God. After months of colic, midnight diaper changes, and feedings every three hours, Mattie—who had quickly been nicknamed Tea by Matt and Nick—was sleeping through the night. The exhaustion that her birth and those first wild weeks home had wrought on me had not been visited upon her fathers. Matt and Nick were on a hair trigger when it came to their daughter. Her slightest whimper or expression of unhappiness sent them into a tailspin trying to make her happy again.

           I loved watching my husbands with our daughter. Each time I watched them gather her up in their arms and coo over her, my heart melted. After a few hours, I’d feel like the Grinch after Christmas—with my heart three sizes too big. Those early days after we brought her home showed me more to love about them.

           Matt was desperately protective of her. When she learned to crawl, Matt panicked whenever she got out of his sight. He would follow after her, snatching her by the back of her onesie or carefully redirecting her with his foot if she got too close to tables or “dangerous” stuff. Of course, to Matt, everything that wasn’t round, a foot high, squishy, or soft was dangerous.

           Nick on the other hand was dedicated to making her smile and laugh. He popped around corners, played peek-a-boo with towels, teddy bears, and his hands, chased her around on his hands and knees, blew raspberries on her belly and cheeks, and nibbled on her fingers and toes. Nick hovered over her crib first thing in the morning making faces—all wide eyes and open mouth grins—until she giggled.

           Mattie, for her part, was enamored with them as well. I couldn’t count how many times I’d walked into the nursery or the living room in one of the houses and found Matt stretched out on a sofa or the floor, Mattie snuggled sound asleep against his chest. More often than not, so was Matt. Nor could I keep track of how often I would come upon Nick sitting with our daughter on his lap, tickling and making faces at her until she squealed with laughter.

           I fell in love with my husbands over and over again in those first months of our daughter’s life. Mattie was the light of their lives, just as she was mine. She grew into thick, dark hair and wide blue eyes that mixed the things I loved the most about my husbands. When she smiled, her cheeks rounded, and I could see Matt in her face. When she was angry or frustrated, she scrunched her nose and all I saw was Nick. Each time I thought of the gift they’d given me in our life together, in our daughter, I felt my heart squeeze with adoration.

           She was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen, and I loved her desperately. But I don’t think—no matter how deeply rooted my mother’s love ran—that I could match the way that Matt and Nick felt.

***

Matt

           Mattie was everything I had ever dreamed of and more. She smiled and I felt like my heart was going to explode. She cried and I thought my ribs would crack from the pain. The very moment I saw her, I fell in love in a way I never could have imagined. When I held her—so fragile and small, wrapped in a fluffy blanket—a fierce protectiveness took root in my chest. Mattie—my Tea—was the love of my life. As soon as she was born, that very second, I knew that I would lay down my life, I would take my last breath for her.

           Those first few weeks were exhausting for all of us. We brought her home and almost immediately she got colic. Nick and I did what we could at night—walking the floors, singing lullabies, making rounds from my house to Nick’s and back again to get her to sleep. Nick’s Nissan took some miles from driving up and down the street to soothe her. We took turns, and I don’t think we were grateful in the moment of how much easier it was with three rather than two. But my brother and I knew one thing—Y/N had done the work of carrying and bringing our beautiful baby girl into the world, now it was our turn to carry the load.

           My favorite thing was seeing Y/N with Mattie in her arms. They were my girls, my loves, everything in this world that was worth giving up everything.

Nick

           Being a father was terrifying. In the days before Y/N went into labor, I spent a lot of time talking to our dad about what to expect. Sometimes those conversations were hard. It had taken a while before we could bring our parents around to the life Matt, Y/N, and I had chosen for ourselves. But with a baby on the way, Mom had come around. And where Mom went, so went Dad. And I don’t know what I would have done without those conversations.

           When Mattie was born—good Lord, when the doctor put her into my arms—I cried like I’d never cried before. She was so perfect, even if she was red and screaming at the top of her lungs. I loved her the moment I knew she was coming, but there was nothing like that first glance of her. Our daughter immediately became the center of everything. And I knew just by looking at my brother, that we agreed—Mattie was ours and we loved her and her mother more than ourselves.

           I don’t know how many nights that I pulled my wailing daughter from her crib and walked the hall with her bouncing in my arms. She watched late night Sports Center with me, and I decked her out with Clippers gear. I used to wrap her up in one of my t-shirts, and after a while it just became a security blanket. Mattie would sleep on my shoulder while I watched the game.

           Every time I looked at my wife, I was amazed at how she had given us this beautiful little girl. I loved them both so desperately and completely that I knew that there was nothing I wouldn’t do for them.

***

           The bed was empty when I woke up. It wasn’t odd for us to sleep in the same bed, me snuggled between the two of them, but it was strange for both of them to get up before me. Of course, now that Mattie was here our lives revolved around her schedule. I rolled out of bed and tiptoed down the hallway toward the nursery of Nick’s house.

           In the months leading up to our daughter’s birth, I’d sketched out a wall of thorns, a castle, and a dragon. The boys painted and put together every piece of furniture they could. Of course, there were two Red Cherry rocking chairs—one in each house—from the front of the local Cracker Barrel. In Matt’s house, the nursery was mermaids, beaches, and underwater fish. The boys had picked out the themes, and I’d had fun putting my art degree to work.

           When I saw the room was empty, I slipped into the living room to find my husbands and our daughter on the sofa. Mattie was tucked against Matt’s shoulder, bundled up in the Clippers shirt that had become her favorite blanket-drool-spit towel-teething ring. Nick was at his side, turned to face the little girl who had stolen his heart. He made faces at her, and she smiled.

           My husbands must have been up very early since they were both wearing their glasses.

           I leaned against the wall and watched them, wishing I had a camera. My heart thumped as I watched them with our daughter. They were completely enamored with her. It made my love for them grow so much that it hurt.

           Matt saw me first. He smiled in that way he had—the smile that rounded his cheeks and squinted his eyes and showed off the dimples at the corner of his mouth—and held out his hand for me. “Morning, Mama,” he said happily.

           I crossed the room and sat on his other side, curling my feet beneath me. He turned his head and kissed me softly. “Morning, Dada.”

           Nick leaned over his brother’s lap to give me a kiss of his own. “Morning, Sunshine.”

           I grinned. “Morning, Papa.”

           The two of them looked at each other and made faces. “Ugh, I don’t like that,” Nick said, turning his attention back to Mattie. Matt held her out to sit on his lap. “You pick, my love. Who’s Papa?”

           As if she understood their words perfectly, she looked between her two fathers. They watched her patiently. Mattie let out a little huff, as if she were thinking terribly hard, and leaned forward to put her head on Matt’s chest.

           “I guess that settles it, then,” Matt said before dropping a kiss on her dark hair. “I’m Papa. You’re Dada.”

           “That sounds better,” Nick agreed. He grinned widely—that smile that was like a kid cheesing for a picture—and leaned in to playfully munch on Mattie’s arm. She let out a squeal of laughter and retreated closer to Matt’s chest. “Where are you going, munchkin?”

           Mattie squealed louder as Nick reached out for her, tickling her as he wriggled her from her Papa’s grasp. He bounced her up and down, going higher over his head each time. Every time he brought her back, he blew raspberries on her belly. I could live the rest of my life in this moment, I thought.

           “Oh, don’t churn her tummy up too much, Nick. I don’t want her spitting up all of her breakfast.”

           At the sound of food, a pair of stomachs grumbled angrily. One of them was mine. The other was Matt’s. We looked at each other and broke into giggles.

           “You get her some breakfast and I’ll get us set up with something to eat,” he said as he stood up. He kissed me on the forehead as he passed by.

           Nick scooted closer and handed Mattie to me. I gathered her close and kissed her cheeks. She grinned and nuzzled against me. “Good morning, my darling,” I whispered. “Are you hungry?”

           “Here.” Nick passed over Mattie’s nursing pillow. It had been a gift from Brandon Cutler and his wife at our baby shower. Brandon’s wife, Denise, was the one who made all the boys’ gear, and she’d outdone herself with her gift. It was a donut pillow done out in fabric that matched my favorite set of their gear—the bright colored paint splash—with the Elite logo right where her head rested.

           I sat the pillow on my lap and settled Mattie into it. She grinned up at me as I adjusted her and pulled the side of my shirt up. It didn’t take long for her to latch on. I tucked my arm beneath her and rolled her a little closer.

           Nick’s fingers brushed along my cheek and tucked my unruly morning hair behind my ear. He settled his chin on my shoulder as he continued stroking his fingers along my scalp. “You’re beautiful,” he murmured. “Both of you.”

           “Even when it’s too in the morning and she’s squalling and I’m an exhausted zombie?” I joked.

           He smiled a soft, sweet smile that made me warm inside. He stroked his thumb along my jaw. “Even then. Especially then.”

           “Midnight feedings when you look half-asleep and Mattie is looking at you like you’re the best thing in the world,” Matt called from the kitchen. “Those are my favorite.”

           I sniffled, trying not to cry first thing in the morning. Nick pressed a kiss to my cheek just about the same time Matt came around the corner with a plate piled high with steaming scrambled eggs and toast. He handed the plate to Nick, who immediately held up the toast for me to take a bite. Not even a minute later, Matt reappeared with a little tray table and a mug of perfectly made coffee. Between the two of them, they set up my breakfast within reach and settled in on either side of me with their own food.

           “What would I do without you two?” I asked around a bite of scrambled eggs and salsa.

           Nick laughed. “You’d have far fewer headaches.”

           “But not nearly as many laughs,” Matt teased.

           They smiled and leaned in to kiss my cheeks. Mattie rustled and fussed. I sat her up slowly. Nick took our daughter and sat her on his lap, cradling her front and head with his hand, patting her gently on the back. Within a minute, Mattie had burped twice.

           Her third burp brought up a little milk that ran straight over Nick’s bare hand. He looked up at me with a half-disgusted face. “Beautiful.”

           I wiped the mess up with the burp towel and grinned. “Parenting is so glamorous.”

           Nick propped our daughter in his lap, where she immediately started drooling and gnawing on his t-shirt. He shared a meaningful look with Matt.

           “It is with you,” Matt said seriously. “And to be honest, I’m getting baby fever.”

           “Me too,” Nick added.

           I looked between the two of them, not even feigning the shock on my face. “She’s not even a year old!”

           They looked at me sheepishly. “I know,” Matt replied. “But there’s something about seeing you pregnant…”

           Nick watched me with his blue eyes going dark. “I don’t know how we controlled ourselves around you.”

           I felt heat run over my face. “Well, you were on loops all the time.”

           “That’s going to be different next time,” Matt promised.

           “Next time?” I quirked a brow at him.

           “Oh yeah,” Nick tossed in, “there’s going to be lots of next times.”

Tag List

@mox-made-me-do-it​ @not-that-kinda-gurl08​ @lilred91​ @imagineall-the-fandoms​ @maelleoute​ @librathepheonix13​ @justamess44​

[okimargarvez]

METEOROLOGY- Hail

Original title: Meteorology.

Prompt: climatic metaphors, phases of love.

Warning: none.

Genre: drama, romantic, comedy, angst, family, friendship.

Characters: Luke Alvez, Penelope Garcia, BAU team, Phil (Luke’s partner), Phil’s wife, Roxy, Derek Morgan.

Pairing: Garvez, Phil x Lucille.

Note: Multichapter.

Legend: 💏😘😈👓🔦🐶❗👨‍👩‍👧‍👦💍🎈.

Song mentioned: Via con me, Paolo Conte.

Meteorology- Masterlist

MY OTHER GARVEZ STORIES

HAIL

There was a moment of respite, a warm, damp moment, enough to grasp the smell of the earth that was impregnated with water, and immediately after the hail fluttered leaping to the ground, resonating on the tiles. (Giovanni Comisso)

 It's calmly, very slowly, that she filters in all your thoughts. You begin with smiling whenever she’s in the room, or every single instant she appears on the screen in the private jet, or just when you hear her voice and her unique jokes.

She doesn't make life easy for you. When she realized that you were not just a kind stranger, but the guy who was likely to occupy Morgan's place, she completely changes her behavior. She has become cold, glacial, and professional. And then he began to prickle you explicitly, calling you new guy and newbie. Just because you were the latest addition. The first time you were disappointed, at the second you were fond of the nickname yet. It made you special at her eyes, different from the others. That's enough.

Then you realize that you no longer need her to do "Garcia", which she's behave over the top; you are staring at her all the time, every moment than you can steal, and you discover yourself jealous of the attentions she reserves to your colleagues. Especially when Walker arrives, and she welcomes him all warm and smiling. But even when it embraces Spencer after you've brought him back from Mexico.

Still, you still don't want to give weight at this situation. Even if you saw a ray of light when you introduced her to your "girlfriend", Roxy, whom she supposed was a woman in flesh and bones, instead ... that smile had lit up the day for you and then it was repeated when she had decided to invade your home with gifts for your dog.

But the real turning point happens one night that you are at dinner with your best friend. Lucille has prepared everything and then she left, to let you two talks freely. She knows that there are issues that you do not want her to know and she has now resigned. Perhaps, sometimes, it's really better not to know.

You tell him what's it like working for the behavioral analysis department you've often fooled together, not having much confidence in those who from a detail think about getting the personality of a subject. And now you've become one of those. Then he asks you what the team is like, so you tell him what happened to Hotch, forced to hide with his son because of Mr. Scratch's and now Emily Prentiss has become your new chief. At that name he lights up.

-Prentiss? But yes, I know her. It's a tough girl, do not you? - you nod. - And they say so she is also ... how to say ... intriguing? -  you don't laugh with Phil, and this sounds strange. He actually scrutinizes you carefully. - Don't you think so? - you don't answer. But no, you never reflected on her; it's clear that you have noticed that it's a beautiful woman who has an interesting character, but nothing more. Your mind is permanently occupied by ... -Is anyone who has attracted your attention most, I say well? - your friend arrives at the same conclusion. -Luke, let's go. I recognize that gaze.- you sigh. -Talk to me about her.- although you're afraid, you realize that it's exactly what you want to do since a century, since you (re) seen her.

-She's ... a ray of sunshine, but also a hurricane. She is a computer technician, formerly she was a hacker. She's intelligent, nice, ironic ... And so sensible, I don't know how she can do this kind of work. She's blond, I first called her Swedish and she didn't particularly like it ... but she has a Latin surname like mine because she was adopted. Roxy loves her and is a mutual love: she has submerged my house with gifts for her.- you realize you're smiling like a dopey because you see it reflected in Phil's gaze.

-Have you already asked her a date?- it seems he believe that you didn't tell him everything.

-No!- you exclaim , terrified at the very idea. -She ... Penelope- by pronouncing her name, it turns it into something real. -She makes me walk on eggs or on burning coals if you prefer the image. I took the place of her best friend and now she call me newbie.- you don't have to strive hard to notice that you say that word with affectionate tone.

-Newbie? - he laughs at the other. -Then you hold on the thorns, huh? Good girl. I understand why you're so taken. The shiver of the hunt is switched on again. - with difficulty he gives you a pat on your arm, man-to-man. -Now you're a profiler; you should know better than me that if a woman is in trouble with a man, well ... he isn't indifferent for her.- you know, you know he’s right. You spent the nights, thinking of things like this.

-I know, but ... I can not. If she says no ... - you shake your head and close your eyes.

-I can't believe it. I have to call Lucille. Luke Alvez fall in love.- that term frightens you, but it's the pure reality. -Well, it was time. Now you just have to find the courage to make a move, let her know she's not just a colleague for you. You can't live forever in a limbo and probably you would throw away the only opportunity of your life.- he throws you a meaningful gaze, the equivalent of one hand to another among female friends. -I have never seen you so taken from someone. Challenge the current. Let's go, Alvez, none (except my wife) - can resist your Latin charm! - he laughed again. You imitate him, and Lucille find you in those state.

 Reading his last name on the screen in front of you, you are surprised to smile. -What do you want, newbie?- you can't avoid treating it in a certain way. You listen to her laugh and you realize it's a nice sound. Lately him forces a little too bending your lips in that sense. Damn!

-You still harping on this story? Well.- you can imagine too easy him passes his hand between his hair and then leave it suspended in the middle of the air, giving up. -I need the name of a local's owner. I sent you the address.- your eyes read the new information at the speed of light, your fingers flickering on the keys. -You should ...- you interrupt him with great satisfaction.

-Already done. You're always a step back. - But then you're struck dumb suddenly. This was one of the jokes you repeated with Derek; the fact that you have used it with another man makes you feel almost like a faithless, as if you had betrayed Morgan. What stupid thing! You close the call and you take five minutes to catch your breath.

What is going on with you? Why is it so hard to talk even only ten seconds with Luke? Or even just think his name? And did you even bother that Emily stops talking to him for a moment, alone, before going to O'Keef? You're not jealous, it can't be. It doesn't make sense.

You don't like him, even though he has a physicist who has nothing to envy in Morgan, though Roxy isn't a human girlfriend, but an adorable dog and you would spend hours just staring at it, contemplating its graceful movements. Although his voice is inebriating and full of sexy shades. Even when you look at him you don't know what you're saying and confuse you, even make more mess than usual. Even before you find out what he was doing in that bathroom, on the floor where you worked, you thought he looked like a good boy, cute and intriguing.

You feel bombarded by too many conflicting emotions. You have to be antipathy, you must because you can't than let the situation of the last ten (fifteen, almost twenty) years repeat; you can’t fall again for the handsome of the team. It's a cliché too banal. And the outcomes would be disastrous. You can't be a friend of one like Luke. You can't stand next to him and watch him flirt with other women while your colleagues relax to O'Keef. But it's your idea, that he's a Latin lover, because he has not done a single gesture for now, not saying a single sentence that goes in that direction.

You see how you think of him as with another Derek, but that's not the case. The Chocolate Thunder's God loves you and has always revered you, at least joking. He called you in so many ways, in random order: doll, goddess, hot woman, treasure, baby, my love, princess, genius ... and who knows how many other nicknames.

Luke, on the other hand, only once has the courage to use a nickname with you, but that one continues to rebound from one ear to the other, without leaving your head: chica. And curse, cursed all of them, he was too sexy when he spoke Spanish.

Not just for this. Simply with Morgan you have felt comfortable from the beginning, the spark was immediately burning, and then turned into a solid and weird friendship. With Alvez you've cut the fuse right away, for security, because he makes you feel insecure, not a genius but just a sclerotic fool, he like to get you in trouble in a different way, somehow pushed and you don't understand why he does, that option you don't even take it into consideration.

The only solution you have found is to go on this way, though sometimes you seem to see a bit of sadness in his face if you exaggerate with tormenting him. However, he could go from one moment to the other, decide he was better in the task force, which he isn't suitable for teamwork ... even if he has turns out to be a fundamental resource for solving cases.

Hours later, when they land, you're still work on the document, because no one is waiting you at home, so it's not worth hurrying. And walk out of bat's cave just when he's passing. You ignore him, even though it seems to you to feel his gaze almost tangible on your body. Fantasies, useless fantasies of a perpetual dreamer. You keep typing the lock code.

But man stops and greets you. -Hey, Garcia.- in your head you count up to twenty before turning. -What're you're still doing here? Don't you have to study the clarinet techniques with your boyfriend? - you understand the clear shades of his insinuation.

Even if you wanted to show friendly with him, less hard, you couldn't succeed it. He enjoys a lot of fun to blows your nerves. -No. It's not your business, but I don't need any lessons anymore.- It's euphemism to say that there is no longer the master who to teach you.

-Oh!- he pretends to be surprised. -Maybe one day you could show me your skills.- now he wants to make you think he's hitting with you, but he won't succeed.

-Of course, newbie. In your dreams!- you head straight to the elevator, followed by Luke, the doors are closing, with a start not from you, you get in and for a second he's staring at you, asking you to press the button that reopens the doors, but you absolutely have no intention to do it and you greet him with a naughty smile, but also mischievous, and with your hand.

_____________________________________________ @talesoffairies @itsdawnashlie @c00lhandsluke @saisnarry @janiedreams88 @kiki-krakatoa  @arses21434@gcchic@martinab26 @rkt3357 @orangesickle @entireoranges @jamirn@kathy5654 @lovesgoodluna@thisonekid @thenibblets@ambrosiaswhispers @perfectly-penelope @teyamarra@courtneyxoxo1@jahreau @gracieeelizabeth27 @thinitta @silviajajaja @maba84 Tell me if you want to be tagged here or if you want to be removed ^_^

[thebachelordiaries]

Getting Out The Campzone: The Bachelorette Season Premiere Recap

Sweet. Sour. Sassy. Classy. 

That’s our girl, Rachel.

Rachel is more beautiful than Cinderella. She smells like pine needles and has a face like sunshine.

The journey for Rachel to find a mate is officially underway and even though these men were hand-picked for her, she will still need to weed through the losers to find the love of her life.

And there are losers galore: a ticklemonster, a Whaboom! guy, an aspiring drummer and a dude named Jamey who hates women.

Some of these aforementioned were among the lucky few to get their own video packages.

-Kenny is a father to his beautiful 10-year-old daughter by day, and a professional wrestler called the “prettyboy pitbull” by night. So essentially, he barks, he bites and he’s good at cuddling.

-Jack Stone is a lawyer from Texas who has the potential to be the world’s most boring speaker right behind Ben Stein. His mother passed away from cancer when he was in high school, so he has a tragic story. The best part about him is that he has a labradoodle.

-Alex is a self-described beefy nerd. He says he likes to hit the weights at the gym but also code on the computer. He grilled some kebobs with his Russian mother, who said in Russian that he is only allowed to kiss Rachel on the cheek.

-Mohit is a startup guy, so I am assuming he must be really good at ping pong. He likes to bollywood dance with his family, and they all seemed like a fun family to be around.

-Lucas, aka Whaboom! I respect his dedication to the brand, but he’s going to have an aneurysm shaking his head that aggressively one day, and I don’t want to witness it on my television screen.

-Blake says he’s a personal trainer but his bio says drummer boy, so I already can’t trust him. Blake claims that since working out increases his testosterone, he is great at sex. I’m sorry but I don’t care about his (probably small) penis.

-Diggy is a nickname this man (I don’t know his real name) received after someone complimented his style. “Hey, I like your digs,” they said. Some may say having 500 pairs of shoes is materialistic, but Carrie Bradshaw would say it’s a lifestyle.

-Josiah probably had the most heartbreaking story. At age seven he cut his dead brother down from the rope he used to hang himself. As a troubled youth, he decided to get into crime and was arrested at age 12 for burglary. He was inspired by the people who helped him turn his life around, so he became just like them. Now he is a prosecuting attorney at the same center that helped him. How can that story not warm up your heart?

The Squad Gets Back Together

Usually the show brings in former Bachelorettes to give advice to the new one. Instead, they brought in some of Rachel’s friends from The Bachelor like Whitney, who tried to convince us that she actually knows how to speak. I for one am not buyin’ it.

The robot pretending to be Whitney said she heard the second guy Rachel met on After The Final Rose has bad intentions. It was either Blake or Greg. I am unsure.

This is Raven adorably getting emotional when discussing Rachel’s journey to find love.

Imagine Rachel did get to meet the former Bachelorettes, though? Her, Andi and Kaitlyn could all go into a corner and talk shit about Nick Viall. I would love to be a fly on that wall.

Limo Entrances

I am going to discuss ones that deserve discussing. Obviously the first person out the limo is typically a big interest of the lead and that person usually (not always) plays a big part in the season. Let’s meet first-out-the-limo guy and everyone else worth talking about:

Peter, aka “Daddy,” was first out the limo. I normally wouldn’t like a guy wearing an outfit that belongs on a waiter in Las Vegas, but Peter can wear anything. I just want to thank him for existing.

He looks like a movie star from the 1940s. Is this love at first sight?

Bryan went up to Rachel and started speaking Spanish. Apparently he’s a Columbian guy who called himself “trouble.” I’m into it, and apparently so is Rachel.

Will came out the limo as Steve Urkel, slipped on the ground and said “Oh, did I do that?” He ran back into the limo and came back out as Stefan Urquelle. It was probably the most creative limo entrance ever. Rachel got the reference right away because she’s Rachel. Will is probably already in love.

Fred had the most hilarious entrance I’ve ever seen. Rachel was his camp counselor 15 years ago, so he brought out a yearbook and showed old pictures of him and Rachel. Rachel said Fred was a bad kid growing up. Most people get friendzoned at some point in their lives. Some even get sexzoned. Fred, however, got campzoned. What will it take to get Fred out of the camp zone? Stay tuned...

Jonathan, in typical ticklemonster fashion, tickled Rachel. Apparently he is a doctor in real life. I feel like tickling someone is some sort of violation. Like I said earlier, we will see this guy on the sex offender registry in due time.

Alex came in with a vacuum and I literally JUST understood his reference as I am typing it out. His entrance was an homage to Rachel dancing while vacuuming in her video package on The Bachelor. Well played, sir, well played.

Matt wore a penguin outfit and was quite adorable. He explained that penguins mate for life, which is what he says he wants to do. He said he’s gonna “waddle right into her heart.”

Mohit used the most basic best man wedding speech in existence as his opening line. If you didn’t work at a wedding hall for three years and haven’t heard this at basically every wedding ever, let me explain. Almost every best man at a wedding has the groom put his hand over his wife’s hand. He then says “This is the last time you will ever have the upper hand in the relationship. Enjoy it.” Negative 10 points for originality.

Lucas, the Whaboom! guy, was all sorts of extra. First he rolled down the window with a megaphone and did his best Bruce Buffer impression. I didn’t want to know that Lucas has one testicle bigger than the other, but now I do. What will I do with this source of information? Suppress it, probably. Lucas then shows us what Whaboom! really means, and it’s not pretty. Let’s just say there’s a reason why Lucas looks like he is recovering from a stoke. Whabooming! is a violent activity.

My reaction after witnessing what a Whaboom! is.

The Goings On In The Mansion

Some worthwhile observations...

Blake is clearly this season’s villain and Whaboom! guy is the token weirdo for the first few episodes. Blake’s presence already annoys me. He’s no Chad. Chad was at least funny.

Mohit took one for the team and was the one who got completely hammered on night one. He was so drunk that he grabbed someone else's drink out of their hand and started drinking it.

Josiah, Alex and DeMario have already developed a friendship. I hereby name them the “Goon Squad” for being a bunch of clowns. DeMario keept calling Rachel his future wife and Josiah was announcing that he probably will get the first impression rose. I believe at one point Josiah asked, “Who has had time with my wife?” Alex is just guilty by association.

Fred by far had the best interaction with Rachel: 

Rachel: “Frederick. I can’t”

Fred: “Yeah, you can.”

Rachel says she knew Fred as a third grader and can’t get past that memory. If the guy is hot enough, I think she could do it. If she can’t get past it, that probably means she’s not interested and Fred will remain forever in the Campzone.

Bryan pulled Rachel to the side to have a private talk. Right out the bat, Bryan tells her he is 37 years old, wants something serious and doesn’t want to waste her time. Oh, he also says “I’m good with my hands.” Ya know, because he’s a chiropractor. 

Just showing some appreciation for Bryan’s face.

The two were flirting back and forth. It felt really genuine like they met at a bar or something. Bryan just went for it and grabbed her face to give her an aggressive face readjustment. A+ for grabbing her face like that. You go, Glen Coco.

Peter said in an ITM that he likes Rachel because they both have a gap in their teeth and honestly that is the cutest thing I’ve ever heard. He brought chocolate from Wisconsin for her and she confessed that she didn’t like chocolate but said she would eat it anyway. Why? Because Peter is fine as hell so you gotta do what you gotta do.

I also observed that Kenny is hilarious. For example, this line: “If she chooses Whaboom! guy, we need to re-examine what we think is fly.”

When the time comes for Rachel to give out her first impression rose, she doesn’t give it to the over-confident Josiah, she gives it to Bryan. They kiss again with a hammered Mohit accidentally witnessing the entire thing. 

Here’s a shot of them kissing that didn’t look like Bryan’s tongue was searching for the Chamber of Secrets down Rachel’s throat.

Good thing Mohit was blackout drunk so he was likely physically incapable of snitching. Too bad Bryan later snitches on himself on the Ellen date. 

Rose Ceremony

The first rose is always super important. That person usually plays a big part in the season.

Peter got the first rose. This, on top of him being first out of the limo, is pretty big. Producers are pushing Peter on us hard. 

Will aka Stefan got the second rose. Soft-spoken Jack Stone got the third. I think Anthony, the deep-thinking bald guy, got the fourth rose.

Producers picked Whaboom! guy to stay to 1. entertain us and 2. piss off Blake. I’m just scared Lucas is going to hurt his neck Whabooming! At least Bryan will be there to work his chiropractor magic if need be. Imagine getting adjusted by Bryan? There is no way I’d be able to relax. 

By the time several of the guys get eliminated, it’s daylight outside. It looks like it’s around noon. 

Blake K. the hot asian went home. Apparently he asked to leave early because his grandfather is sick. Dammit, ABC, put him on Paradise. He might be too good for the show, but I still need to see more of him.

Grant, the ugly Dan Humphrey also went home.

Follow me on twitter, @thebachdiaries 

Another eliminated guy cried about how he spent so much money on outfits and now no one will be able to see them. It was kind of funny but, I hate that I was able to relate to this so much.

So there you have it folks. The real fun starts on Monday once the group dates are underway. I also promise the upcoming recaps won’t be the length of a short novel. I need to get back into my blogging groove.

Prediction Corner: Top 5

Peter

Bryan

Kenny

Will

Jack Stone

Who do you think will get the 1-on-1 next week? 

[seniorbrief]

My Father Was the BTK Killer. Here’s Why I Managed to Forgive Him.

Travis Heying/Wichita Eagle

The man knocked on Kerri Rawson’s door around noon on February 25, 2005. She looked out at him from inside her apartment near Detroit—he was holding an FBI badge.

She almost didn’t answer. Her father, a code compliance officer in Park City, a suburb of Wichita, Kansas, had taught her to be wary of strangers, and this one had sat in his car for an hour outside her home. But she decided to let the FBI agent into her kitchen, where she had made a chocolate Bundt cake. From then on, the smell of chocolate cake would make her queasy.

The man asked if she knew what BTK was. Yes, she did. BTK—Bind, Torture, Kill—was the nickname for the serial killer who had scared her mom decades ago and who was responsible for murdering ten people in Kansas between 1974 and 1991.

The FBI guy was her dad’s age, in his late 50s, wearing glasses and a necktie, nervous. Kerri was a 26-year-old substitute teacher taking a day off, still in her pajamas. The man said her dad had been arrested as a BTK Killer suspect. He needed to swab her cheek for DNA. (Here are the strangest unsolved mysteries in each state.)

At that moment, in Park City, Kerri’s mother, Paula Rader, 56, sat down to lunch at home, waiting for her husband, Dennis. Cops rushed in, guns drawn. A week later, Paula’s lunch still sat uneaten in the house she had shared with Dennis since the early 1970s. She’d never sleep there again.

Cops arrested Dennis as he was driving home for lunch. In Wichita, officers picked up family and friends for questioning. At the police station, Paula defended Dennis. Back in Detroit, Kerri yelled at the FBI agent. The last time she had seen her dad was in Park City at Christmas. He’d looked sad. She remembered his bear hug, how he smelled, his brown uniform. This could not be true, she told the man. Dad had called last night, asking if she’d checked the oil in her car.

At that point, she did something she would do many times over the next seven days: defend and then doubt her father at the same time. She told the agent about Marine Hedge. Hedge, 53, was a grandmother with a silky southern accent, five feet tall, weighing no more than 100 pounds. She’d lived six doors down from the Raders and disappeared in 1985, when Kerri was six. Hedge’s body was later found in a ditch. Paula had been fearful. “Don’t worry,” Dad had said. “We’re safe.”

Kerri remembered that when Hedge disappeared, her dad wasn’t home. “It was stormy, and I didn’t want to sleep by myself. My mom let me in her bed—that’s how I know he was gone.”

After the FBI agent left, she took down a picture of her father from the hallway and stuck it in a closet. She Googled “BTK” for proof that he was innocent but then told her husband she was matching her memories to BTK’s murder timeline, wondering if her whole life might be a lie.

The next day, police and politicians gathered in Wichita’s city hall. “BTK is arrested,” the police chief announced. Kerri was furious when she learned that to link her dad to the BTK Killer, cops had obtained one of her Pap smears taken years before at Kansas State University’s clinic. They used it to confirm that the Rader family DNA closely matched DNA in the semen that BTK left at the scene of a quadruple homicide in 1974. The FBI guy had asked Kerri for a cheek swab so he could double-check her DNA.

The first nights, Kerri and her husband, Darian, slept as if one of them needed to be on watch—she on the couch, he on the floor. TV crews camped outside, and when Darian drove to work, they followed.

Darian watched his wife change. Athletic and nearly five foot ten, she was no girlie girl, and he loved that. She could walk for days carrying a backpack. But now, she was the BTK Killer’s daughter. She even looked like her dad: same dark hair, same eyes. She shared his middle name, Lynn. She felt as if she’d done something wrong.

Courtesy Kerri Rawson

Kerri searched her memories. The night of Hedge’s murder, Dad had taken Brian, her brother, on a Boy Scout campout. Was it an alibi so he could sneak out and murder their neighbor? In 2004, around Christmas, after BTK threatened in letters to the police and news outlets that he would kill again, Dad had driven her to the airport to pick up her brother. But Dad had wandered off. Was he mailing one of those letters? Watching the news to see if he was mentioned? She minutely analyzed her whole life.

Kerri remembered how he spoke sharply if she sat in his chair or failed to put her shoes away. Cops said BTK made strange marks in his communications to them. She recalled weird marks Dad made on newspaper stories. “Code,” he’d called it.

Three days after her dad’s arrest, Kerri flew back to Kansas City. On the plane, she escaped by reading Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. But on her layover, she saw her father’s face on the airport’s TV screens.

Mike Clark, the family’s pastor, visited Dennis Rader in jail a week after his arrest. Clark called Paula afterward, and Kerri watched her mother take the call, with a yellow legal pad in her hand. Paula wrote, “He’s confessing,” and underlined it as they talked.

It was true. He had murdered the Oteros: a mom, a dad, and two children, ages 11 and 9. He had tortured victims, sexually defiled several. He had taken Hedge’s body inside Christ Lutheran Church, where he was congregation president. He posed her and took photos. BTK had started his crimes in 1974, before Kerri was born.

Everybody assumed the BTK Killer was a sadistic genius. But the real BTK is an ordinary, inarticulate doofus, Darian thought. And a good dad, Kerri said. With Paula, he’d taught the kids’ godliness. Kerri had two college degrees; Brian, her older brother, had been an Eagle Scout and was training to serve on U.S. Navy nuclear submarines.

Dennis couldn’t understand why no family members visited. Kerri wrote him: “You have had these secrets, this ‘double life’ for 30 years; we have only had knowledge of it for three months … We are trying to cope and survive … You lied to us, deceived us.”

The family dreaded a trial, where his crimes would be described. Dennis pleaded guilty to spare them. Kerri felt relieved until the plea hearing. Her dad told a TV audience at length how he had killed people, lingering over how he’d murdered the Otero kids. He seemed to enjoy the story. He even brought up Kerri. “Joseph Otero had a daughter; I had a daughter.”

One night the next year, while Darian slept, Kerri lay beside him and wrote her father.

“Should I tell you that I grew up adoring you, that you were the sunshine of my life … true, even if it is coming out jaded and bitter now … Sometimes I just want to go out and buy the biggest, buttery tub [of popcorn] I can find and wave it in your face and say, ‘Ha, you won’t ever have this again’ and ask was it worth it? In the next breath I want to ask if you’re staying warm at night … I’m so sorry that you’re alone in that small cold concrete cell and sometimes I just wish I could give you a hug.”

She never sent that letter. And when her dad wrote, his letters sometimes went into the trash, where she dumped cat litter on them. Other times she’d write, and he would not reply, later telling her he’d been busy.

Dennis committed his first murders at age 29. At age 29, Kerri became a mother, and suddenly she truly despised her dad. In 1974, he had killed two children. In 1977, he had strangled Shirley Vian while her six-year-old son watched through a keyhole. In 1986, he killed Vicki Wegerle as her two-year-old stood in a playpen. “Man hurt Mommy,” the child told police. Kerri stopped writing to her father and cut him out of her life.

Sue Parker, a therapist, treated Kerri for five months in 2007. Parker saw a woman with above-average intelligence, poise, and post-traumatic stress. (Kerri gave permission for Parker to be interviewed for this story.) Many factors determine how well people can recover. “It’s about the severity of the trauma and how long it goes on, but it also depends on the coping mechanisms the victims have … their support system, who they have around them,” Parker said.

Kerri had had good people around all her life, Parker thought. A loving husband. Church. Friends. And good parents. Not just Mom. Dad too.

Courtesy Kerri Rawson

The cops said Dennis Rader fancied himself a James Bond character with cover stories—Boy Scout volunteer, congregation president. But the BTK Killer had also been a good dad, Parker said. “Maybe it was all a cover story,” she added. “But if it was, it was a cover story that actually worked.”

While betrayed on a level only God can understand, Parker said, Kerri seemed healthy and strong when she left Parker’s care. After her daughter, Emilie, was born, Kerri clung to teachings about God’s love. But when a sermon on forgiveness was announced at church, she stayed away. She had a second child, Ian, in 2011, but her dad’s betrayals kept poisoning her life. When Emilie was five, she asked her mother where her grandfather was.

“In a long time-out,” Kerri replied.

Could Kerri see him? Emilie asked.

“It’s a really long time-out,” Kerri answered.

One day at church, Darian and Kerri listened to a woman describe being raped. She said she forgave not to help the rapist, but to lighten her own suffering. Kerri talked about that idea for days. In August 2012, she announced at church that her father was a serial killer and told her story. “I have not forgiven him,” she said. Marijo Swanson, a friend, talked to her. “If we choose not to forgive or not work at healing from the betrayal,” she told Kerri, “we continue to give the other person power to control us and our feelings.”

That fall, Kerri suffered a fracture in her tibia. She was laid up for weeks. Shortly afterward, forgiveness poured over her one day. She sobbed so hard while driving that she had to pull the car over. The anger was gone. In December, Kerri wrote to her dad for the first time in five years. She told him she would never forget his crimes or be at peace with them, but she was at peace with the man who had raised her. Then she wrote of her life and of the grandchildren he would never meet. “I don’t know if I will ever be able to make it for a visit but know that I love you and hope to see you in heaven someday.”

After that letter, Kerri changed. “Before she forgave him, she thought of herself as BTK’s daughter,” Darian said later. “But as soon as she forgave him, she was Kerri again.”

In February 2013, Kerri spoke at church. “[God] told me, ‘You have a dad problem; you have a trust and obedience problem. You trusted and obeyed your earthly father, and he hurt you, so now you’re holding out on me. Let’s fix that.’”

She said, “I told Him that ‘I love you.’ He said, ‘Then show me.’”

Courtesy Kerri Rawson

And so she had done it, she told them. She had forgiven him. She wrote again to her father, telling him once more that she forgave him. Her father was stunned. “Forgiveness is there between the lines,” he wrote in his rambling style. “She recalls all that we did as a family—many good memories, and that helps her make the day. That is true love from a daughter’s heart. What else can a father ask for.”

That was not the end to Kerri’s struggles. In September 2013, Stephen King said in a TV interview that he’d written a story inspired by the Rader family called “A Good Marriage,” about discovering a monster in the house. Furious, Kerri gave her own interview, lashing out at King. Among people giving her rave reviews: Dad.

“She reminds me of me,” he wrote to the Wichita Eagle. “Independence, fearless, uses the media. I was touch[ed] by it … People reading … will see we had a ‘good Family.’ Nothing to hide; Only me with my ‘Dark Secrets.’ Like she said, I was a good Dad, (but only did bad things).”

Memories came back to Kerri. In 1996, the Raders had lost a cousin to a car wreck and were losing a grandfather to illness. To comfort the family, her mom made manicotti, but the Raders got into a fight at dinner. “We had this old rickety table and someone—I don’t remember who—pounded on it, and the legs broke and all the dinner came crashing down … My dad was so angry at my brother, he put his hands around my brother’s neck and started to try to choke him. I can still picture it clearly, and I can see the intense anger in my dad’s face and eyes. Close to manic.”

For Kerri, life continued to be complicated. “I fight my dad sometimes in my dreams, never understanding who let him out of prison,” she said. “I’m always very fearful of him and very angry in my dreams. Sometimes I’m even fighting for my life or frantically trying to convince others of the truth.”

On a bitter morning in January 2015, Kerri is in Wichita. “Coming back here to Wichita is like stepping into enemy territory,” she says. She wonders whether people might recognize her, and she talks about forgiveness. “I feel bad for the 30 years of … bad things because of one man, my dad … I forgave him. But I didn’t do that for him,” she says. “I did it for me.”

She returns to her old block and points. “There’s my grandma’s house, and there’s where Mrs. Hedge lived … And here is where our house was.”

It is a vacant lot. The city razed the house to discourage gawkers. “To get to my grandma’s house, I had to walk past Mrs. Hedge’s house, and now [at age six] I was afraid. And the guy who killed her was living in our house.”

She shows where a tree house stood, built by her dad. She indicates with her arms how big his garden had been. “He turned my bedroom into a nursery for plants when I was three, and I’d sleep with my brother in the bunk bed. I was so annoyed with my dad. But now you realize that kept him out of trouble. He was trying to stop. So it was plants—or murder.”

She points to a depression in the grass: the grave of Patches, a pet dog long dead. The cops were so suspicious of the BTK Killer that they had dug up the dog’s remains to see whether BTK had buried any secrets with them. He had not.

But nothing about her life was spared, Kerri says. Not even the graves of long-dead dogs.

Next, find out the most notorious criminals in each state.

Original Source -> My Father Was the BTK Killer. Here’s Why I Managed to Forgive Him.

source https://www.seniorbrief.com/my-father-was-the-btk-killer-heres-why-i-managed-to-forgive-him/

[i-am-very-very-tired]

Dressed as Joan of Arc in costume armour with a chain mail headdress, it was a typically dramatic picture of Isabella Blow - and as part of a prestigious feature on British fashion icons in Vanity Fair magazine, it should have been one of the crowning glories of a legendary career. Yet within a couple of days of this arresting portrait being taken, Isabella was dead after swallowing poison, aged only 48 - her seventh suicide attempt in 14 months. Looking at the picture now, I realise Issie was already preparing herself for her last performance: the shoot was her dramatic farewell to a cruel world. I was at our flat in Eaton Square, London, when Issie's sister, Lavinia, called to say she had swallowed some poison - and my immediate feeling was one of sickening déjà vu: my own father had died in 1977 after drinking weedkiller, and it had killed him in half an hour as the liquid burned out his insides - a story I had shared with Issie the first time we met. My 12-year-old brother, Amaury, was with him at the time and he said that Dadda never cried out, though his fists were clenched in pain. In fact, when I got to Issie's bedside in the Gloucestershire Royal Hospital along with Philip Treacy, the milliner who was Issie's best friend, she was pale, but not apparently in pain. Whatever Issie had taken took longer to work - but it killed her just as surely in the end. She passed away in her sleep two nights later. But why had my wife Isabella Blow - the fashion legend, the toast of glossy magazines from London to New York - wanted so desperately to kill herself? To answer that question, I would have to go back to her extraordinary childhood, her relationship with her parents - and to the great, central trauma of her life. On 12 September 1964, her two-year-old brother, Johnny, died after falling into a shallow pool in the garden while Issie was supposed to be looking after him. She was only five years old herself at the time. Johnny's death, as well as traumatising Issie for life, utterly destroyed the family. Her parents, Evelyn and Helen Delves Broughton, never recovered from the loss of their only son and heir. They were unable to seek solace in their three other children - Issie and her two younger sisters, Lavinia and Julia - and eventually divorced ten years later. By then, Issie was at Heathfield, a girls' boarding school in Berkshire, where up to this point she had been seen as a 'little ray of sunshine' by the teachers. For most children of divorcing parents at boarding school, it is customary for the parents to come to the school to explain the situation. But this was not the case for Isabella, who learned the news out of the blue when she opened a letter from her mother at lunchtime in the school dining room. According to her schoolfriend Rosie Pearson, Issie rushed out of the dining room at Heathfield, clutching the letter, in floods of tears. From then on, her behaviour at school became melodramatic and temperamental and she acquired a new nickname, 'Huffy'. Tragedy ran deep in Issie's family. The stain on the Delves Broughton name went back to her grandfather, Sir Jock Delves Broughton, infamous after being accused of the murder of a fellow aristocrat, the philandering Earl of Errol, who had an affair with Jock's beautiful second wife, Diana, in Kenya in the 1940s. Jock was acquitted of the murder, immortalised in the book and film White Mischief, but couldn't escape the smears of the press and his contemporaries and committed suicide in Liverpool in 1942 in what some saw as an admission of guilt. Issie believed she'd inherited her depression from Jock, and was later to base one of her own unsuccessful suicide attempts closely around Jock's successful one. Isabella's childhood was, by any standards, enormously privileged. But it was overshadowed by her father's terror of losing what remained of the family fortune, having watched as a young boy while Jock spent, gambled and unsuccessfully invested away a fortune worth a staggering £70 million in today's money. Jock inherited two stately homes - Broughton Hall in Cheshire and Doddington Hall in Staffordshire - a collection of paintings and furniture accumulated over six centuries, 15,000 acres of prime farmland in three counties, a London residence and a multitude of stocks and shares. By the time he killed himself, with a morphine overdose, he left an estate that was only a tenth of the size of the one he'd inherited. Broughton Hall was sold, as was most of the farmland and other assets. Even as a child, Isabella was perpetually anxious about money. She had undoubtedly picked this up from her father, who, when he wrote to her at boarding school, would put in brackets next to the name of each person mentioned the total number of acres of land they owned. When Evelyn inherited the estate, he began a lifelong mission to save money - turning the farm into a profitable enterprise and moving his family out of the grand Doddington Hall (which now stands boarded up in a sorry state of disrepair) and into the gardener's cottage in the grounds - something Isabella was to resent all her life. Though fond of his daughter, Evelyn was penny-pinching and crassly insensitive - his 18th birthday present to her was a Bible and a card telling her she was now 'off the books'. A year after his divorce, in 1973, Evelyn married again, to Issie's stepmother Rona, who also had three young daughters. When 15-year-old Isabella came home on holiday from school, soon afterwards, she found she'd been evicted-from her bedroom in favour of her stepsisters and moved to a guest room. She now felt unwelcome at Doddington in the school holidays, and this can be pinpointed as the moment she began to feel as though she belonged nowhere. This demon developed over the years into an obsessive fear that she would end up a homeless bag lady - a belief that haunted her and contributed to her suicide, despite the fact that, at the time of her death, with a flat in Eaton Square, we were manifestly not destitute. Isabella always got on badly with her own mother - a legacy of possibly feeling blamed by her for her brother's death - but her relationship with her stepmother was also catastrophic. Another problem with 'The Steps', as she called her young stepsisters, was that they were extremely good-looking. She hated her protruding 'goofy' teeth, blaming her parents for being too mean to spend money rectifying them when she was a teenager. In fact, she had a terrific, slim figure and huge, flashing green-blue eyes - but was convinced she had an 'ugly face'. Issie later told her friend Hamish Bowles at Vogue, 'If you're beautiful you don't need clothes. If you're ugly like me, you're like a house with no foundations; you need something to build you up.' Aged 18 and at secretarial college in Oxford, she developed a reputation for wearing evening dresses during the day, dressing as a sexy 1920s-style temptress and performing infamous stripteases. To the staid young men of her circle she was heady and provocative -particularly to a mature student called Nicholas Taylor, the son of an Oxford lecturer, with whom she had an intense romance, leading to marriage at the age of 22. The young couple eventually ended up living in New York in the early 1980s - just as Issie's old friend, Lucy Helmore, moved there with her new husband, Bryan Ferry, then one of the hottest rock stars in the world. Bryan arranged an interview for Issie with Anna Wintour, then creative director of American Vogue - and she got the job as one of Anna's two assistants. Issie immediately created a stir by the bold outfits she turned up to work in, and her eccentric manner. Wintour recalls, 'People would stop by my office just to see what Issie was wearing that day. One morning she might be in full punk regalia, the next dressed like a maharajah, dripping in jewels and sari silks.' It rapidly became clear that although Issie was not a great administrator, she was highly creative, and hard-working - on things that interested her, at least - and second-to-none at spotting new talent. Wintour says, 'Every day she'd leave Vogue as if her working day was only beginning; the next day she'd come in and relate with breathy excitement about the new artist, the new designer, the new photographer, the fabulous girl we absolutely must work with.' As Wintour observed, 'the more something shocked her, the more it captivated her imagination'. One such discovery was the painter, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Andy Warhol's collaborator. Both Warhol and Basquiat ended up doing assignments for Vogue as a result of Issie's introductions. Issie met Warhol at a party where she was wearing one silver and one purple shoe of the same style by Manolo Blahnik. Warhol came up to Issie and said, 'Gee, you had to buy two pairs of shoes to get that look.' Their friendship was to last until his death in 1987. But by now her marriage was on the rocks. Although Issie was later to be diagnosed with chronic manic-depression, she did not identify herself at this stage in her life as suffering from the condition. It put an intolerable strain on their relationship, and she and Nicholas divorced in 1983 after just two years of marriage. Issie returned to London, landing up at Tatler in 1986. Soon she was shooting four fashion pages of her own every month which, though a creative success, often put her at odds with 'the suits'. Issie solved this problem by spending vast amounts of her own money on props for shoots, then struggling to claim it back in expenses. She has the distinction of submitting the highest expenses claim in the history of Condé Nast - for a dilapidated building. Issie wrote on the expenses form, 'Just £50,000 for a very small ruin that really was a must'. It went unpaid. It was at this point that Issie and I met for the first time, at a mutual friend's wedding in Salisbury Cathedral. She walked into the cathedral as the first hymn struck up - and I was dumbstruck at her appearance; she was wearing an enormous hat festooned with giant ostrich feathers, bright red lipstick and a purple Katharine Hamnett coat dress. I couldn't take my eyes off her. After the service, I waited for an opportunity to speak to her - and we immediately connected. Despite the brevity of our meeting, I knew I had fallen in love with her, and sat with her after dinner. We were kindred spirits and I ended up telling her about my father's suicide. It was, I admit, an unusual chat-up line. We got engaged 20 days later after a whirlwind romance - and married the following year in a dramatic ceremony in Gloucester Cathedral, with Issie dressed in a dark violet dress by Nadia Lavalle and a medieval headdress by Philip Treacy, whose work she had recently spotted at Tatler and whom she relentlessly pursued to create the headdress. Issie and I would be together for the next 18 years - and in Philip Treacy she had found not only the creator of her wedding headdress, but her best friend for life and the greatest discovery of her career so far. They quickly developed an intense and creative relationship that he later likened to 'having an affair with no sex'. We returned from our honeymoon to our respective careers - me as a junior barrister and Issie to Tatler, only to discover she'd been sacked. I never found out exactly why - perhaps the new editor, Emma Soames, didn't like Issie's style, or she'd been spending too much time at her house in Gloucestershire, or she just wasn't easy to work with - but once she'd digested the news, she wiped away her tears and took the lift up to the fifth floor of the same building, where the offices of British Vogue were located. Here she spoke directly with the legendary editor, Liz Tilberis, with whom she'd had no previous relationship, and told her what had happened. She received a handwritten letter the next day, offering her a job at Vogue styling the portraits of the famous people it featured. One key shoot she did was legendary photographer Steven Meisel's Anglo-Saxon Attitudes in 1993, informally known as the 'London babes' shoot. At a cost of around £80,000, it remains to this day the most expensive ever done at British Vogue. Issie's brief was to find beautiful aristocratic English girls to inspire Meisel - and the hunt was utterly exhaustive. The girls who made the final cut were Issie's cousin, Honor Fraser; the designer Bella Freud; Issie's new assistant Plum Sykes, and Stella Tennant. Honor Fraser went on to become an internationally successful model - but Stella Tennant's career was catapulted into orbit as a direct result of meeting Meisel, who immediately went on to use her on the cover of Italian Vogue. Soon after, Karl Lagerfeld announced Stella as the new face of Chanel, with a rumoured £1 million contract. During the Babes shoot, Issie told Stella, 'If I make you famous, I want a bottle of my favourite perfume.' A bottle of Fracas duly arrived.