#the way lili saving her girls in cambodia can directly parallel rose saving the girls in angelsport

[roseworth]

its all about lili to me. she was the only person rose was close to for the first 15ish years of her life, then she dies and rose has no one left except wintergreen who she barely knows but he sort of knew her mom so she stays with him. she hates slade because she blames him for her mothers death, she hates herself because her mother died saving her but she refuses to think about that too hard and directs all her anger toward slade and wade. she cant talk about lili to anyone because a part of rose that shes buried deep deep down blames herself for her death, so its so much easier to deflect and never talk about it. she clings to scraps of hope that her mom is alive because if she is it means she didnt kill her, and the only person shes ever let herself love is still alive

and lili was never fully open with her, she always wanted to protect her and keep her away from danger so there was so much rose didnt know. and once lili's dead rose realizes that there was so much she didnt know and now she never will, so she tries so hard to connect with her because its all she has!!! she avenges lili's death by killing wade multiple times but its not enough and she has to know more about her but now theres nothing of lili's because their home was ransacked and she has nothing left. and rose throws herself into trying to understand her mother. she joins slade--even before he drugs her, even though she hates him--because hes giving her the chance to avenge her mother (again), and lili always had good things to say about him on the rare occasion she actually talked about him, so rose wants to know what lili knew because there had to be some reason that she loved him, and she just wants to understand her. and the drug makes her think less about her mother, makes her want to be more like her father instead of her. but the closest she ever feels to her mother is when slade is carrying her to safety after she gets stabbed in the throat, because maybe he IS kind and caring in the way lili used to describe and she finally feels like she knows the version of slade that her mom talked about. but then slade implants radioactive material in her skull and she thinks lili was wrong about him, but the bright side is now she knows what its like to love slade for what she wishes he was instead of who he is, just like lili did.

but she doesnt know what lili was really like. lili put up a wall when she was with rose because she wanted her to be safe and didnt want her to be involved with her father. so she would always keep her close but never tell her everything, so the person rose knew as a mother wasnt who everyone else knew lili to be, and rose will never know because she refuses to talk about her. but rose IS her mother's daughter. she says in fresh hell that growing up, she knew what traits she got from her mother and just assumed that the rest were from her father. but she doesnt know that she got (some of) those traits from lili too. she says that she imagined her father was "defiant, aggressive, and cunning" because she doesnt know that was her mother. lili never let rose see that side of her because she needed to keep her out of danger, and rose didnt see what lili was like when someone she loved was in danger. rose didnt see what lili was like when rose got kidnapped. and now rose spends the rest of her life worrying about how she's her fathers daughter because she'll never know that she is truly and completely her mothers daughter. all she knows is that the life rose is living was never what lili wanted for her, so she thinks shes disappointing her. and in a way, shes right.