Chapter Text
Joe was born in Paris, France to two parents, both seemingly incredible artists and genuine lovers. He was praised for working artistically, finding a great love for performance arts and even dabbling in painting. Joe was beloved by his parents and was encouraged to be creative, to be persistent and different. As things grew onwards, his parent’s began to show so many cracks in their foundations. They were together because they were the best of the best, they were together because of social standing and all the support they’d give Joe was almost purely artificial. As Joe grew up, around mid teens, he began to become aware of all the false praise he had been receiving, and quickly declined in his work and his passion diminished greatly. He was absorbed in the beautiful art of ballet and adored all the attention and love from some fans and other friends during and after performances. Even so, knowing the love from his family was fake it drove him into a deep depression. He questioned everything about himself, his interests, his ideas, his opinions, his life. Was this all a ploy to receive that sweet attention that was fed to him through a pet’s water bottle? Waas it all simply a ruse for them to look even better on the cover of magazines and interviews? Was this something he even liked? Was this even his decision? The questions overflowed his mind and began to fall out of the spotlight. He felt his fans leave over the course of 3 short years, (he would be about 19-20 at the time) and soon his friends followed. He had lost the role of the star dancer in many of his performances, he was pushed into the background. His parents, absolutely terrified of this failure becoming a mainstream headline, they forced him to move out of their house and to southern france, Marseille, and live there for a while, stating their son was being tutored by a famous dancer. Joe was miserable. Feeling casted away from his family, forced to move away and be alone because of his failures. He felt as if life had nothing left to offer him. He began to show up to port markets less and less, barely cleaned his room, hardly ever cleaned himself. Joe couldn’t stand to live anymore, the growing pain in his chest, feeling as if the disgusting horrifying self hatred wouldn’t ever lessen, he decided life was no longer worth living. He had planned everything, he had made choices he wasn’t planning on backing down on. He figured it would be easy, as he walked to the pier one night to complete his plans, an older woman had met him on his path. She was a neighbor of his and would make small talk when they met at the market, she could tell something was wrong. She walked and talked with Joe for a very long long time, most of the night. She held him, comforted him and talked about life. Joe hadn’t felt genuine love like that for such a long time. It was completely overwhelming for him. After a few hours, she brought the man back to her home, fed him, and sent him back up to his apartment. She offered to clean for him, cook for him, she made trips many times a week to check on him. He was overcome with thankfulness and begged her to take the money he had as payment, though she often insisted she didn't need it, and when she did take it she would buy ingredients for food for him. After a year Joe had finally gotten a good standing on his own, the woman, who Joe had only known as Grandmere Annette, was happy to see him so well again. It was around this time that Joe had decided to take up a new hobby, one that he could safely call his own, boxing. Seeing many other skilled men on the television, on posters, he figured he’d give it a try. Out of respect and love, Annette was more than happy to accompany him to many matches and practices. He was finally standing tall. Although he never really became a superstar, or really anything better than a small hometown hero, he was happy. Annette soon brought up the idea of going to America and competing in the WVBA. Joe was ecstatic and incredibly happy to go and try out. Unfortunately, compared to those around him, he ranked last in the association as rank #3 in the Minor Circuit.