"You're sitting there buried under thousands of dollars and there's no food in the house, there is plenty to talk about. What's going on here?"
Don't be mad yet, we still don't know what the full deets are.
This looks reaaaaally bad though.

What is this, Mama? Why haven't you spent any of this? There's no food in the kitchen.

what the fuck mom

"Mama, if I can't trust you with the finances, I'm afraid I'm going to have to take over. This is not healthy."
"What are you doing?"

FRACTAL 2014/12/23(Tue)18:00 No. 614634 ID: 6b7ea4
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"mama..." you have to grip the dresser against the wall for support. there's no way you can count it just by looking, but it's clearly months and months of work. your work. months of never seeing your siblings. months of sleeping alone. "what is this? why haven't you spent any of this?"

she turns her face away. "i'm going to spend it."

another alternate reality plays in your mind, one where you dive and your hands close on her jaw, one where you twist her face to look at you and you scream. those things never happen in real life, though. in real life it takes you a long time to formulate a response.

"you need to be spending it now. on the children."

she's rubbing one of the bills between forefinger and thumb and for some reason the sound makes you feel like vomiting. you raise your voice. "there's no food in the house, mama."

her fingers don't stop moving. you raise your voice even more, trying desperately to keep the change only in volume and not in temper. "they went hungry today."

FRACTAL 2014/12/23(Tue)18:01 No. 614636 ID: 6b7ea4
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she stops. her head does not move when she speaks. "you watch how you speak to me, boy."

She's saving up for something.
Or she thinks she does.

You are the one making the money of the house Wilbur, she may be your mama, but she's letting the children starve, do not back down from her.

Ask her what is so important she will let her kids starve, and that you will speak to her as you will like considering you make the money so that your family WOULD not starve but instead find that she's sitting pretty in all the money YOU earned.

>you watch how you speak to me, boy.
I am, Mama, I am.

I wouldn't change a word of it. This is wrong.

FRACTAL 2014/12/23(Tue)18:37 No. 614647 ID: 6b7ea4
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"you don't get to object to my tone when you're letting the children starve." the words feel clunky and uncomfortable on your tongue, and you barely manage to spit them out. you reach up to rub at the corners of your mouth before speaking again. "this is wrong, mama."

she stands slowly, bills fluttering to the ground, and steps on them as she turns to face you. "i am your mother," she whispers, "and i will do what i like, and you will do as you are told."

"not if it hurts them." dread is twisting in your stomach, cold and thick.

"i can hurt every one of you as much as i need." her voice is rising, she's walking towards you, you want to shrink back but it's too late, her hand is on your wrist and you don't know how she's so strong, how she overpowers you as easily as she did when you were a small child, and she's twisting your arm back and screaming.

"i am your mother! it is my god-given right! children exist to serve their parents!"

FRACTAL 2014/12/23(Tue)18:38 No. 614648 ID: 6b7ea4
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this is not an unfamiliar string of words. your eyes are beginning to glass over, the way they always do when her voice is so loud and her grip is so tight.

"that's why i gave you to the wolf in the first place!" she's shrieking, but her voice sounds muffled and distant to you. "because it was my right!"

...
Fight her.
I don't care. She can't be their mother anymore. She can't believe this anymore.
YOU FIGHT HER. DON'T FEAR HER ANY MORE. SHE CAN'T HURT YOU ANYMORE.

be careful, though. if she's screaming, the kids can hear, and if they walk in while the two of you are in a physical fight they could get hurt.

that being said, though, if you react how you always do, nothing will change. rip your arm away from her and shove her off as hard as you can.

What the hell does she need that she neglects her children?

Alright, she's gone on long enough. Strike.

KICK 'ER RIGHT INNA FORK

this is a matter of life and death. you might not be able to beat her with your bare hands. look for a weapon

You're no child, Wilbur. Every day, you spend over eight hours tending to the whims of a sociopath who's past his prime and too depressed with how fucked up his life is to make yours better. Every night, you schedule resources so that your family doesn't starve. You're no longer a child, and even if your mother's bull^&*( belief that children are the slaves of their parents is true, it sure as hell isn't applicable to you now.

FIGHT BACK. Your boss gives more of a @#$% about you than he does your mother. Sending her to a mental hospital is probably a reasonable idea and your boss will likely agree, if only for the lulz.

At least your mother hasn't spent all of it on the drugs yet. But seriously, why does she need to hoard all that money? Something's wrong - if she was planning on blowing it on drugs or prostitutes, she would likely have taken better care of the cash. Maybe she's trying to perform some kind of ritual offering in hopes of bringing her husband back?

Take a moment to realize that you have options. You have a boss who is filthy rich and bored. Your mother isn't some kind of rage demon who can overpower you and all of her other children at once. There are mental hospitals for people who have lost their minds, and they've done enough experiments to get a rough idea of how the mind works. You're a smart man, Wilbur, so stop feeling helpless and start thinking.

Doing nothing will change nothing. I'm not sure fighting her is the best option, but it is better than letting things continue the way they have been.

He's obviously been beaten and battered before by her...as someone who knows what this is like. It crumples you and turns you into a weak beaten puddle of useless.

The only way he's going to fight back is
A: he snaps and she's toast as he unleashes everything he's ever held in

or

B: he finds someone to help him

otherwise he's going to curl into a ball and take the beating that's coming

>>614667
I hope it's A because nobody's coming to help him, and curling up into a ball is just going to continue the status quo.

Please Wilbur, for your brothers and sisters, fight back. There's probably a better option but right now but you're in a corner. Even if you kill her it would be better, but please hold yourself together if you do go that far. She's too dangerous to allow this anymore. She's gone too far for too long.

Take her down.

What Would Wilbur Do?

>>614661
I reiterate:
KICK
HER
INNA
FORK

FRACTAL 2014/12/23(Tue)19:46 No. 614687 ID: 6b7ea4
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there's an alternate reality where you fight back.

you've seen it a lot of times. sometimes while it's happening. sometimes afterwards, when you're watching her walk away. sometimes in between, in times of false calm that are really just waiting periods, stretching from one beating to the next. you always fight her, but quickly and efficiently, like in a movie - she ends up on the floor, but not hurt. there's never any blood or bruising. you just ... win.

but that's a fantasy, and this is the real world, and in the real world this has been happening for too long, and you are too tired and too terrified and too trained. you try. you think of the children and you raise your arm, but the movement is uncertain and clumsy and she slaps it away and shoves you to the floor.

"i'm leaving," she's panting. "i'm taking the money and leaving. i'm going to go so far away that i'll never think of this place again."

you used to dream that there was a river out of the swamp. your body jerks as you hit the wall. a river, cool and clear all the way to the bottom, all smooth pebbles and gently waving waterplants, with tiny silver minnows and crawfish in the spring. a river you could lay in, and you'd float easily, and it would carry you away and out of the swamp.

but that's a dream, and this is the real world, and in the real world there is no river out of the swamp.

"i've had enough of you." you can hear sounds, but they aren't arranging themselves into meaningful words. "i never asked for this. i never asked for any of you."

you are aware of footsteps. your mother is not.

Get up
Get UP
Do not let her take that money.
Stop her. GET UP.

"We never asked for you, You horrible selfish fuck. Leave, you won't ser another cent from me."

irony attack. stab her in the eye with your glasses.

>>614687
Wilbur!
If you let her walk away now you'll forever regret it!
Goddamnit, Wilbur get up!
GET UP GET UP GET UP GET UP GET UP

>>614687
"you are aware of footsteps. your mother is not."

does this mean there's others in here? I doubt the kids would make loud footsteps.....

Tell Ulric about this next time you see him.

Tell her not to talk about your siblings that way. If those footsteps are who I think they are, they'll appreciate you sticking up for them.

So what would you even do. You depend entirely on me to do anything for money, I mean the only thing she was good for was spreading her legs and that's it, going to whore herself on the street once all that runs out, she aint pretty enough to try and find a man, not looking strung out as she is.

i know im very much in the minority here, but . . . wilbur, stay down.

she's violent and potentially dangerous. if you let her take the money, this could just end here. you can tell ulric what happened and i'm sure he would give you an emergency advance on your pay.

money can be replaced. your safety is more important than winning against her right now.

how long have your siblings been without food? do you think mary was telling the whole truth? will they all still be alive in a week? this isn't your life on the line.

stay down. let her gather up whatever money she wants, and let her go. you can make more money. you can take care of the children on your own, but this is not healthy. you're better off letting her leave.

She lost her right to be a parent a long time ago, and she has no idea how the real world works. Just let her run away and face that harsh reality, you need to take care of the kids.

>you are aware of footsteps. your mother is not.
Turn, who's there?

>i'm taking the money and leaving.
If you let her do that, all the sacrifice will be for naught. Your brothers and sisters will starve, and nothing you have done will have mattered.

Get up.

She's not leaving. She doesn't know how.

Wilbur, ignore the angry ghost wearing your mother's face. It can make noise and it can walk around and follow the old routines but it can't do anything that matters. Your mother died a long time ago, all the important parts of her anyway. There may be no river out of the swamp but there is a door out of this one room. Go. Crawl, if you have to.

Go back to your little siblings and tell them you found a pile of money, a whole bunch, enough to buy some really nice food and even things like clothes and toys. First, though, it's time to play a game.

The game is called "Dragon's Hoard." Mom is going to play the dragon, and be as big and scary as she can, and all of us are going to be the brave adventurers. Whichever adventurer grabs the most money without being caught wins. There are no other rules to Dragon's Hoard; you can be as sneaky as you want. One good way is to all rush in at once so the dragon is distracted.

>>615400
That would be kinda patronizing to them, would endanger the kids, and all in all is a terrible idea.
These are some canny kids, maybe, but if this terrible excuse for a person can beat up grown-ass-man wilbur, a bunch of tiny kids aren't gonna fare any better.

Fine. Whatever. If your mother leaves, you don't have to feel guilty - it's her choice to run out on her family, and she has enough money to get by on her own.

You are NOT destitute. You have fifty dollars to spend on food, that should be more than enough for one day. You still work for a rich guy. If you tell him what happened, he might laugh vigorously and pay you for the story. I don't think he'll object to letting your siblings stay over at his mansion now that there's no real reason to stay here. Not like he uses most of it anyway. He might order them to stay in the basement, but that's much better than starving to death.

Maybe you can't beat your mother, but remember this: she's a slave too. Your grandparents trained her to follow a set code of laws, and now she's stuck in a situation that those laws never gave her protocol for. She obeyed the concept of man of the house, and now her husband is dead and you're not beating or @#$%ing her, so she's at a loss of what to do. She's incapable of realizing that her Fundamental Christian "order" is imperfect, or doesn't apply to her situation the way she thinks it does, and now she's left blaming herself, demonizing herself, for being unable to follow her laws, even though it's nearly impossible and crazy to try to live up to this ridiculous standard. The end result is that she thinks she deserves to hurt others because in her mind, everyone has failed to uphold the law and must be punished.

Look, if she leaves, let her. But if she tries to kill her children, fight back in self-defense. If she goes for the kids, grab a weapon and throw its weight, lose control of the blunt object by throwing it into her neck. Let the weapon fight for you.

Money can be replaced. But lives and memories can not.

If she tries to hurt you or your siblings stop her. If not just let her go. Would be better for your siblings to remember there mother in a better light than what you are seeing now. Try to keep them out of this mess.

As long as you all are alive and well you can survive this and move on.

As for the footsteps are they the heavy footsteps of a adult? Or are they the lighter ones of a child. Either way be prepared to react to whoever is coming near.

FRACTAL 2014/12/26(Fri)18:33 No. 615699 ID: 6b7ea4
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there are too many conflicting things jostling for position in your blurry mind. the footsteps - could it be the children? - you have to get up, what if they try to stop her from leaving - you're starting to push yourself up on your arms but they're shaking with fear and weariness and you can barely breathe.

FRACTAL 2014/12/26(Fri)18:33 No. 615700 ID: 6b7ea4
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another noise, not loud, but sudden, and the floor shakes a bit. a thump? a crash? you manage to look up enough to see your mother, slumped over on the floor, and a shadow falling over her groaning form.

FRACTAL 2014/12/26(Fri)18:33 No. 615701 ID: 6b7ea4
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"wilbur?"

+end of chapter 3+

wait what

...Merry Christmas, Wilbur.

Merry Christmas.

Now please tie up your mother before she does something that your entire family is going to regret.

Also, where's Paris? Loretta, did something happen to Paris? Loretta?

Wilbur: "...Sis? Can I borrow that club for a minute?"

Make sure she's still breathing and try to stop the bleeding. She needs to go to the hospital. If you call them tell them she fell and whacked her head against the edge of the dresser.

intermission: http://tgchan.org/kusaba/quest/res/615711.html

Oh, hey Loretta.

>>615714
nah, whack her again