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For Clarisse's family, does the four responses to danger fit them? Flee, Fight, Freeze, and Fawn?
I read the entire thing and I couldn't help but think that. Either way, it was a rather toxic situation...the Patriarch is a petty asshole who sees both his stepdaughter and biological daughter as tools (as you do in these type of settings) as well as punishing his unwilling wife by proxy by abusing both girls in different ways - extreme favoritism and isolation/golden child and scapegoat scenario- and as for the mother, while she does have a sympathetic backstory, she isn't' innocent either.
And considering how the truth came to be...well, I have a feeling that Matilda would face the reprocussions of such extremes after what she did to her supposed "father".
And as for the Merc in the latest chapter...what beef does he have on Best Boy?