#it was a complex issue and she was just one person desperate to absolve herself of guilt through motherhood

[mrbluesummers]

Any time I post content relating to baby Knives and his corruption, there's inevitably people who make a comment about how the difference between Vash and Knives is that Knives didn't get a moment with Rem like Vash did, but Knives didn't need one. He knew she loved them already. That's why he never lashed out at her.

Knives is open and honest with Rem until the end. He doesn't pretend like he isn't hurt. When she addresses how he's "forcing [himself] to carry it all alone" he's completely honest with her:

Rem: Are… you… trying to bear this all by yourself? Tesla's story must have been a shock to you. I'm sorry, but I just feel like… you're forcing yourself to carry this alone, shutting everything away inside. Knives: Yeah. I am. It was a shock. It really was, but… we have to go on. That's what you said, right? There's so much we have to do… to make sure it never happens again.

While he doesn't straight up just say "hey I'm going to kill all humans", he is otherwise open with her that he's decided to carry the weight of protecting them from humans. Maybe if Rem was better equipped to handle a traumatized child, she would have been able to better address Knives' trauma, but the issue was never her or her love.

You can see it in the way he still cries and finds comfort in her embrace, and thanks her, and the montage of them living happily together. Knives never withdrew from Rem like Vash initially did. He was purely afraid of other humans and what they might do to his family, Rem included. All of his hate for her came after the Fall.

[ortheaux]

so, let’s talk about parents.

frankly, it’s a subject i prefer to avoid and have successfully for an unfathomable amount of time; but this week i received a message—happy birthday and an invite, no less—from someone i had worked daily to erase from my life. when i received the message i was first incredulous, but every so often she does try to locate and speak to me as if nothing were amiss and usually i have let it slide. usually it would come across to me as selfish; there was a time where even hearing her name or a language that she spoke would make me shake and sweat, or lash out. often both, but as the years have passed, unchecked pain, fear and rage have matured into controlled disappointment and shame. the last time i heard from her and actually responded was a few years ago, in a similar manor and i made the mistake of indulging her. there is often a part of you when mending from long term trauma that craves something that doesn’t exist and it was thankfully down to her crass non-admission of guilt that i was able to block and purge her for the final time. generally, i always saw her as this otherworldly being; master manipulator, calculating destroyer of minds, bodies and souls. as a child, she was always five steps ahead of me and i felt physically and intellectually dwarfed by her. beautiful and smooth as silk, she seemed to slither insidiously through society and her quiet, calculated, gracefully parasitic survival was something that awed and despaired me. these days though, i’m coming to understand her as she is; less picturesque and lonely, pathetic and jaded. ageing and desperate - but the thing is, i think she was always desperate. clinging to unnatural belief systems, manipulating and swirling around innocent people like toxic smog, trying to wring admiration and love from them and draining them - but it’s always been something she could never absorb. no matter how much she schmoozed and lied her way into people’s minds and violated them, it was as if her heart was made of a material incapable of absorbing what she was convinced that she needed, like a hydrophobic organism convinced they are dying of thirst. i think the cool, charismatic but icy exterior has always hidden a constant state of panic and a permanent sense of lacking. point is, i received the message and though it hurt me, i found a way to respond to her that i deemed satisfactory so i did. there are a few issues with her methods of contact one obviously being the constant violation of privacy over the years. the messages are a much smaller way, but there have been many others from accosting my friends and acquaintances, finding my phone number and calling me, some years ago physically following me and eventually finding out where i lived and i had to move, and so on. now, i think i’ve always had trouble understanding this habit of trying to reach out to me as during the time she had access to me as her daughter she held and demonstrated a clear disdain for me at all times unless she needed something from me(not that i realised the last part at the time.). i had at first wondered if it was a form of intimidation because she no longer had access, but recently i have become curious as to whether it is even malicious at all, more than delusion. i have always wanted an apology from her—and don’t get me wrong, even with an apology i would still never want to be caught in that cycle with having her in my life again, but closure—but i’ve begun asking myself, what if she doesn’t think she’s done anything wrong? is that possible? if so, i’m concerned by the level of mental illness that would allow for that. if not though, it is obviously an insult of the highest order to know what we know, and to be able to even look me in the eye as an adult let alone repeatedly reach out to me in the ways that she has. the worst part of knowing her even for a second is the constant confusion that she brings, and i told her that she brings me no pain but her existence is a source of pain to me. i just know that she needs to hear that though, i suppose the formality of my response was a retaliatory jab in itself as really, i find it offensive that she keeps violating my privacy and requests and contacting me. i find it offensive that these people can do and condone what they do and live with themselves; that may actually be where my biggest issue lies i’ve just realised as i’m writing this. i wouldn’t wish harm on anyone, but i’m having some feelings about the fact that she can live with herself and i almost didn’t when realistically, i did nothing wrong but being born and now she has decided that she is christian and reborn; what god can forgive this, and why would you try to ask anyone for forgiveness before me? when i started writing this i was in a fairly clinical mindset and it was going to be partly therapeutic, but partly another informative piece in understanding trauma survivor’s thoughts, processes and feelings towards people that treat them a certain way and then come out of the woodworks and in fairness, i’m hardly crying and shaking at the thought of her/writing about her but the original idea of the piece is sort of lost in that the writing has become chaotic & has opened up some feelings that i had forgotten i had/walled myself off from! i’m not one to speak on things of the past these days and only occasionally acknowledge them briefly and sort of nonchalantly i s'pose but in writing this, i have discovered that i am still confused and frustrated as an adult and if i can do anything, incite solidarity in the way that someone can be reassured that we are not wrong for having these feelings as adults, or something in my process can resonate with someone surviving another person then this doesn’t have to be a secret. as much as the actual details of my past shame me into silence, i am not ashamed of generally being a survivor and especially not a survivor of her. anyway, i responded and then blocked her(obviously), but i’m curious about her possible retaliation afterwards. the version of her that i remember would now go on the offensive, but now that she has decided she is christian and morphed into her next persona, i’m unsure of her next move - or if there will be one at all. i figured christianity would be healthy for her, as her previous belief systems (and i suppose by extension, mine for a while) were much more fanatical and warped but i wonder what she looks for in it. I’m not sure that i believe it’s anything normal, she is an occult follower by nature and the best case scenario for her would be searching for absolvement in the religion for personal peace. i suppose that has to be fine though, because through everything i don’t wish for her to be in turmoil, more than i wish that she was just sorry. that might just be a luxury that i won’t be in receipt of and the best thing i can do is move on, and protect my space and my life from being infected by her. i suppose all i can say is to people that tell victims that ‘it couldn’t have been that bad, that’s your parent’ is that sometimes there is a vast complexity in the relationship between parent and child and one must sometimes be rigid and unmoved in order to survive. it’s not that we don’t have feelings towards them, we do. sometimes, it is simply in one’s best interest for survival to sever ties. honestly, these people create bonds that they can not nurture and there are only so many times a moth can return to the flame before it burns alive.

i will not be burning today.