#when he cares deep he feel inferior and he will crumb

[doki-doki-imagines]

There is no love in your relationship. At least not from Kaiser's side. He likes you, as he may like someone else, but you make him feel good, and most importantly Michael firmly believes your actions, your words aren't born from the heart, but from a deep desire to use him, to wrap him around your fingers.

The blonde never reveals his feelings to you. He keeps a smile on his face even when your honeyed words make him gag. They are mellifluous, and Kaiser can hear the lies dripping. He is always on the alert, waiting for you to drop the mask and show your true face. Michael tells himself he is ready for your betrayal and it's not like he is getting used to you, not moving a inch when you ask for something he doesn't want to do, provoking and teasing you, fueling the fire to see your real self.

The problem comes when he notices that there isn't malice in you, or at least there is no malice towards him from you. Michael isn't used to that, unloved since the day he was born, disliked by many, a disgusting guy that finds pleasure just in other people downfall. That's why when he starts to feel his heart beating dangerously fast when you smile at him, or when he feels the need to put a cover on you when you fall asleep on the couch, even tucking it in so you won't get cold, he starts to worry.

It's not the same affection he sports for Ness, more similar to the one a kid has for his new favourite toy, or as Alexis' parents would say, "an experiment well made". It's totalising, making him feel like dirt under nails, something that scratched old memories that still wound his mind. He searches for an explanation of his emotions in his psychology books and everything points at love. But the outcome isn't the same because Michael broke the first rule of a loving relationship; truth. So now worry and anxiety pervade Michael's body because now that he desperately cares about you, he understands that you'll never love his real self, would never love the corrupt person he is.

A laugh with no real joy leaves Michael's throat, hands scratching his eyes, blonde long lashes already sticking together thanks to the newborns tears. Fingers digging into the skin of his cheeks. Imagines of you smiling, of the handmade gift you gave him for his b-day, of your eyes filled with joy, of you angry but still loving him flash in front of his eyes.

But nobody loves dirt under the nails. Seems like he was born to be unlovable after all.

[bekolxeram]

I'm late to the party I know, but I need to learn how to make gifs first. I actually find the Bucktommy dinner scene a bit awkward, but not because they "lack chemistry" or the "flirting is problematic". It's not supposed to be just a cute bonus scene, it's engineered to stuff as much information as possible into mere 55 seconds. Here is my read on it:

The good old always at the hospital joke, probably just Tommy trying to lighten the mood after such a hectic day for the 118, but mainly a set up for the next part.

Buck does not see the humor in it, he seems upset.

Tommy has apparently gotten to know Buck enough at the stage to immediately clock it, and under all the dark humor and sarcasm, he does actually care about Buck's feelings.

The scene of Buck and Eddie in the hospital room with Bobby ends up on the cutting room floor, we've only got that one shot of teary eyed Buck when he breaks the news to Eddie at his house, so this is the first time in the episode Buck gets to express his fear of losing Bobby, his father figure.

And here we are, controversial moment number 1. There isn't much context attached to this line, so viewers interpret it differently. I'm in the minority camp that thinks Tommy is being serious here, Lou's delivery makes it seem like Tommy says this out of concern. I believe it's a call back to this line from the medal ceremony:

Here Buck is talking about Phillip the same way Tommy and Chimney (possibly Hen too) talk about Gerrard: like he's dead. Tommy is probably wondering if Phillip is another Gerrard situation, and he invites Buck to talk about it if he wishes to.

Buck gives a humorous but one word answer, so Tommy gets that he doesn't want to get too deep into it.

From this line on, it's a set up for the Gerrard reign of terror in S8. Tommy reiterates the jealousy he mentioned in 7x04, that he wants to become a part of the 118 family, which he only had a little taste of before he left to become a pilot.

Tommy backstory crumb. Buck and Phillip at least see each other at family functions, Tommy doesn't have a relationship with his dad at all. Judging by the medal ceremony, he doesn't seem to have any family left.

It confirms Gerrard as the anti-Christ anti-Bobby. Buck becomes the person he is because of Bobby, while Tommy behaved the way he did in the 3 begin episodes because of Gerrard. It acknowledges Tommy's toxic ways back in the days, but as we can see by the time Bobby became captain of the 118, Tommy was already on friendly terms with Chimney and Hen, we might have a chance to see the transformation in between next season. I've heard that season 7 is supposed to be a soft relaunch of the entire series, so maybe Gerrard is a good plot device to make new viewers understand the positive influence Bobby has on the firefam.

Classic deadpan humor from Tommy, Buck gets the message that he wants to keep the conversation lighthearted.

Now Buck has the power to decide which direction he's leading the conversation into, and he gives us controversial moment number 2, he brings up daddy issues and makes it horny. Look at his smirky face, he's definitely not trying to have a serious chat about father complex. He's the one who starts flirting, not Tommy, and it shows us unlike the nervous fumbling at the beginning of their relationship, Buck is now comfortable enough to initiate flirting.

Tommy can't say no to that face, so he flirts back, but it can also be interpreted as him being in denial of his obvious daddy issues. More conflict and angst for S8?

More flirting. Boy's got rizz towards all genders. He basically admits he might have "daddy issues" in a sexual connotation.

Now comes THE controversial moment of the scene, if not the episode. I've seen people online bashing Tommy for "making it sexual" (Buck did), "interrupting a meaningful conversation to satisfy his daddy kink" (no one is actually talking about any kink), or even "exploiting Buck's trauma to put him in an inferior role in a dom/sub relationship" (What? That's not what d/s is about).

I raise you the point that the word "daddy" is no longer some kind of kink exclusive lingo. This word has entered the popular zeitgeist the last couple years, and now it basically just means a sexy older man. I bet the daddy kink thing doesn't even cross the mind of most of the GA, they just take it as Tommy hoping Buck find this older man sexy. I think we might have collectively read too many smutty fanfics, that's why we all immediately jumped to the very extreme of the kinkiness spectrum when it comes to this scene.

Conclusion, the dialog in this scene may not sound natural, but that's not the point. This scene is in fact, an infodump. Kudos to the actors for making it cute.

[mrpenguinpants]

Alright, I finally read Reincarnation no Kaben

AFTER MONTHS (it’s probably been a month? My mind doesn’t keep track of the days) I FINALLY CAUGHT UP TO RNK. Ty to Okita anon for the recommendation (*￣3￣)╭💕💕💕 I absolutely loved it. 

After this I’ll start on the other recommendation you gave me. I kept a bit of a log of my reading journey under the read more tag. 

Major spoilers for literally everything in RNK up to ch 53 “Withdrawal”. 

Oh, and I’ll finish answering all my leftover asks and I SHOULD have a fic done by tomorrow. I was so ready to write and then I got up. Now I’m back to bed. 

I’m just gonna write this as a log since I read super super slow and I’m only on ch 7 at the start of writing this but I’m really liking it already. Though to be fair. I love everything okita anon recommends haha. I remember you saying you were simping over Kouu and I haven’t gotten to the part where he appears but I wanted to quickly google what he looked like to prepare myself and I see this:

Well. That’s reassuring. 

I was actually kinda surprised by how many western figures were in the manga since I know there are only like 7? Around 7 western figures that pop up in any anime/manga but seeing people like Albert Fish was kinda surprising but I really liked it. Also, at the end of certain chapters they write little bio’s on them so you get to know more about them was such a nice touch.  I also love that the tradition of making males -> females still stays strong even outside the fate universe hehe.

---

Literally, the next chapter I see him. AHHHHHHHHH. Well maybe not him but his eyeballs. 

This guy lowkey reminds me of the MC’s brother but it’s 99% because he has the same long ponytail. I wouldn’t be surprised if the brother was apart of the the Greats. Honestly, Ein reminds me of those really hard headed girls that are actually really kind on the inside but aren’t good at expressing themselves (maybe because that’s pretty much her character). I also like that Ein doesn’t like males but she’s hiding behind this guy. At least, I’m..99% sure this is Ein. 

I FUCKING KNEW IT. AS SOON AS I SAW HE GOT A THEIF TALENT I COULD FEEL THE SOLO LEVELING VIBES IN ME. HE CAN STEAL TALENTS I FUCKING KNEW IT!!! I’m surprised that Neumann didn’t say anything and  Haito seems to be aware of it.  

Edit: Ah okay, I understand a bit now but it almost seems like Haito is the only one aware of Toya’s second talent.

Edit 2: Okay, as much as I love power hungry MC’s I’m really glad they didn’t make Toya into that. I am such a softie for sympathetic and kind MC’s like these even though it’s been done so many times. I’m really glad this didn’t feel like a rehash. I mean, some points some of the stuff Toya says it does but it’s fine, I don’t mind that. I actually gave a crap about him since I usually prefer the side characters (I UNDERSTAND ANON, I CARE ABOUT KOUU SO MUCH AHHHHH) but HAITO?? AHHHHH. 

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I like that Izo always has the same hat in every adaptation he’s in lol. Istg, cats are always op. Schrodinger seems so strong and the parallel universes are my absolute shit. Sometimes I think, in one universe I did this and in this universe I’m not. Would I rather stay in this universe or be in the one where I am actually productive. Usually I pick the productive universe and actually work but sometimes I’m a bit of a slacker haha. I think this is my approach to a lot of things in life. But I digress, I don’t wanna get too deep into my life. 

I can sorta sympathize with the sinners. At least the ripper guy to say the least. I love love love unhinged characters that just want to basically destroy the world or at least have fun. But then you find out- wait they are actually sympathetic oh no. That’s how I felt about Djoser in “im the great priest imhotep” (please...i beg...someone read this...I’m so starved). 

As much as character development and rooting for the hero is cool and all, I just want to simp for the crazy “let’s burn the world to the ground” kinda character. I’m also so glad Toya doesn’t automatically become evil and try and steal everyone’s talents because he does seem like a good person and I really don’t see him suddenly switching fields so when he saved (I don’t remember names I’m sorry), the undead solider it was really nice. Proves that he still has his humanity and isn’t strictly relying on the branch of sin. 

It makes sense that he wants to steal talents since he never had one (and it was kinda out of left field when he killed Vlad and we just never addressed that ever again haha) but to see him actually consider his actions and if he actually want’s to steal his teammates talents feels right to me. Poor guy doesn’t seem to have a lot of friends so this is the first time he’s ever seemed to have companionship, aside from Haito, so I really hope he doesn’t attempt to steal their talents. I think I’m thinking of the slime? That time I got reincarnated as a slime manga/anime. Where he’s the pokemon catcher of skills. I thought that was where it was going. 

But I do kinda like how selfish Haito and Toya’s talent stealing relationship is (I mean, later it develops but my first draft of writing this I wasn’t there yet). I’m not sure if selfish or like self-gratitude/pride is the right word but it’s kind of a breath of fresh air. Rather than Haito trying to contain or “help” Toya’s inferiority she’s actually encouraging it and using her own talent for her own...acknowledgement? Er, yeah let’s go with that. 

---

This. This interaction. I love this. Like, genuinely love this. We need more of this. Two people from opposite sides finding some common ground and their fight to the death is less about morals or whose on whose side but for themselves. I love that. This is actually some wholesome stuff. 

Edit: AHHHHH CATCH MY UGLY CRYING IN THE BACK BECAUSE ALL THE “SINNERS” ARE ACTUALLY AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. IM DEAD. YOU’VE KILLED ME. 

---

I KNEW IT! YOU CAN NEVER TRUST THESE KIND OF PEOPLE!! I’m going to slap the whiteboard on this but if I see any “goofy” character I’m immediately sus of them. 

As much as I hate that Hitler is getting drawn as a small child I really like this. I know the whole, oh I killed your friends but I’m letting you go because you express humanity but I’m gonna finish my death with a sympathetic line, can be annoying to people but idk I really liked this. 

Honestly this and the undead soldiers death hit me hard ngl. This manga might not have my favourite art style during some points compared to like main stream manga but it has some really beautiful scenes. 

BOOM CALLED IT, though it’s pretty obvious lol. 

THE PONY TAIL NEVER LIES AND HES DA VINCI IT MAKES SENSE NOW

He looks so cute lol. I like that Seiya has the talent of being talented in everything while Toya has the talent to steal other talents. Seiya can probably only cap his power by his own physical/mental abilities with Toya can pull a solo leveling and go further beyond. Thinking of it like jack of trades vs master of none type deals. Though, I might be thinking too hard on this. I like that this man is actually humble but I really wish there was a tiny bit more to him since we only get this one interaction/backstory but the manga isn’t completed yet. I really hope we get to know about Seiya more;; like how he became da vinci or etc. 

Everytime I see Neumann I look at that comic sans type and it kills me on the inside. But I love that her eyes are 01 just, mwah perfection. These little details that aren’t that big but it’s soooo nice. I also ahem, unhinged character heart be still. It’s really nice reading manga in bursts because you can see the art progression and damn does she look good. 

tiny fang appreciation post. 

ngl i’M HARD SIMPING FOR THIS MAN. It’s the pony tail, I have such a thing for guys with long hair (and this is why genshin broke me) but man the art really picked up here. 

I didn’t get into it but OKITA ANON I GET IT. KOUU??? AHHHH. WHY DID YOU HAVE TO DIE??? As much as his whole “war” was a bit questionable in the beginning and tbh I still don’t really get it I like that he knows he’s not the same as the other Greats but still tries to help the other “sinners” in a way only he knows. That’s why Seiya was so important;; I get that he wanted them to have a fun death and to be understood but idk, the whole war idea and having them kill each other (especially the Hitler fights because I understand the others since they reached some kind of acknowledgement) but nonetheless, what a great guy.

Nightingale gives me mad masaki vibes from chainsawman. I hate them and I can’t wait for you to fail, but the inner part of my is cheering for you because unhinged characters are my shit. I feel really bad for Neumann, I had suspicions she wasn’t actually like that since it’s sooo out of left field but I’m really glad the manga seems to know what it’s doing. I really wish we got more Kouu interactions with everyone tho. 

NOW THIS. THIS IS SOME WHOLESOME STUFF. I WANT THIS. I REALLY WANT SPIN-OFF OF REALLY SAD ANIME/MANGA/STORIES WHERE ALL THE DEAD PEOPLE HANG OUT. That’s how I’m feeling about JJK and the scroll segments or BSD WAN that just came out. IT’S SO WHOLESOME TO SEE EVERYONE NOT TRYING TO KILL EACH OTHER. 

UGLY SOBBING IN THE CLUBBB AND KOUU AND CHARLOTTE AHHHH. I hate how this is phrased but the respect I have for Hitler?? YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW HARD THAT IS TO TYPE?? Kitazuka is cool tho, I really like him. Some god given talent. I’m hard simping over him but I really hope we get to know more about him later. 

Getting smug mona vibes, I love this. 

AHHH IVE NEVER FELT THIS UPSET OVER AN APPLEEEE. I’M ACTUALLY UPSET. IF HE DIES IM ACTUALLY GOING TO CRY MY HEART OUT. 

THE FAMOUS SLAP 

I’M SORRY WHA- SLENDERMAN?

Oh..wow. Okay, be still my heart. When I first saw her I thought she was really pretty but now I’m absolutely smitten. God damn, can I please have some more crumbs on these characters before they die;; 

AHHH SAME GIRL FUCKING SAME????? I adore these small panels and translator notes. It’s a real breather after the sad 3am hours talk these characters go through. 

Yagyuu. Jesus christ. WHY ARE ALL THE DEATH SCENES IN THIS MANGA ACTUALLY SO PRETTY AND STABS ME IN THE HEART??? that’s it. goodbye. im fucking out. im actually so upset rn. WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO ME? 

---

In conclusion, and I should probably re-read what the characters say and not go off on memory because I’m about to get really deep. I really like how they phrased why they wanted to stop the branch of sin. That there are people just like Toya and Haito who, if they never found the branch of sin, could still probably lead respectable and okay lives. That there was a “them” in another universe that didn’t go down that road and that they want to be in the same universe as “them”. I know this sounds really confusing if you haven’t read the manga but going back to what I said about the parallel universe stuff. 

There was a universe where Toya and Haito didn’t rely on the branch of sin, that even without their talents from becoming a returner, they could still live a happy life given their own personalities and attitudes. It was kinda moving since in the beginning, Toya wanted a talent so badly and now that he has one. He’s realizing that wait, I don’t need a past life talent in order to live. Honestly, I hard relate to that because I totally agree with him. If you have a talent you can probably live a very happy and comfortable life that other factors wouldn’t matter if you just have that incredible talent. Thinking of it as a painter or artist, if you had actual god-given talent you wouldn’t need to worry about other factors since people would naturally seek that talent. So you end up comparing yourself to others and setting that limit on yourself. 

But that’s okay, it’s completely natural and I’m not saying it’s horrible if you do this. Fuck, I do this all the time. I’m not saying the manga is changing my life but it’s kind of refreshing that it get’s talked about since other adaptations of this just make the character super OP. I understand wanting to have that incredible talent, fuck who doesn’t? but you don’t need it in order to live earnestly in the bigger picture sense. Not everything you do has to be productive and honestly, learning to be okay with having fun is nice. Just being okay with who you are right now, even if it isn’t perfect in your eyes, you still have time to build upon yourself and your own talents but doing it for yourself. 

But I probably missed the point and I’m going way to deep haha. But I really enjoyed reading this and thank you once again to okita anon for the recommendation^^ I always love everything you send me and I’ll start reading the next one. If anyone else has any recommendations let me know! 

[snarkybluechristian]

Hazbin Hotel: Yandere Alastor x Vaggie Chapter 45

Angel laid in his chair, staring at the ceiling while the monsters discussed their plans to torture him into being normal.  

It made Angel sick to his stomach.  His family never loved him for who he was, even after they had all died.  It was their cold and abusive behavior that made him turn to burying himself in his mafia work, then to drugs, to sex, and eventually, to Valentino who made his life so much worse.  The sins were his, but the self-hatred came from them.  It was all their fault.  It always was.

Now, their prejudice had enabled Alastor to do the same thing to Vaggie and Sir Pentious to Cherri.  

It was the cycle of continual hatred like Charlie had talked about in one of their therapy sessions.  First, you decide to hate a person and then you do everything to hurt them more and more and more until eventually you destroy them and everything they care about.  

Their hatred hurt him and extended its reach to the people he loved the most just to hurt him even more.  It was bullshit, and it had to end.

Angel closed his eyes in the first prayer he had said in decades and felt his resolve grow stronger.

His family wouldn’t win.  They couldn’t.  Angel wouldn’t let them or Alastor or Sir Pentious for that matter.  Even if he got sent to Double Hell in the process, he wouldn’t.

Angel would beat them all.  All he had to do was wait.

“I’ll come upstairs to join you for breakfast once I get Anthony fed and into his bath,” Dr. Red said, calling Angel back to reality.

“Good, we’ll see you then,” Henroin replied, walking up the stairs.  “See ya later, Anthony.”

“Yeah, we’ll see you on Friday, little brother!” Arackniss called over to Angel from the bottom of the stairs.  “Please be a good boy for the doctor while we’re gone.”

After that final plea, Arackniss followed his father up the stairs and left the basement, leaving Dr. Red alone with Angel.

Dr. Red stood over Angel’s chair and studied his face for a moment before adjusting the chair so that Angel was sitting up again.

Angel hardly lurched forward at the sudden movement since his restraints kept him so snugly in place.  He bowed his head down to stare at the floor with the most pitiful expression he could as Dr. Red pulled out his bag of medical instruments and started rummaging through it.

Once he found what he was looking for, Dr. Red turned back to Angel.

Much to Angel’s surprise, Dr. Red placed a finger under his chin, moved his face so that the two of them were looking eye-to-eye, looked at him with a warm and comforting expression, and said, “Don’t look so hurt, my patient.  I know this process hurts now, but as soon as it’s over, you will be normal and so much happier.  I promise.”

Dr. Red wiped away a few tears and the corner of Angel’s eyes with his thumb before he let go of Angel’s head.

Angel continued staring at the ground, feeling completely confused and taken aback and trying his best to hide it on his face.

Without any warning, Dr. Red pulled out his stethoscope, reached the cold end inside the straitjacket to the skin beneath the fur on Angel’s chest, and said, “Take a deep breath, Anthony.”

Despite the uncomfortable sensation, Angel immediately obeyed, breathing as deeply as he could muster in his straitjacket.

“Good,” Dr. Red said moving the stethoscope down to Angel’s heart while looking down at his watch.  “Just as I hoped.  The electroshock therapy has calmed your breathing and your heart rate.”

Dr. Red stuffed the stethoscope down into his doctor’s bag, walked over to a cart with a covered plate in the kitchen area that Angel didn’t notice before, and said, “Now, Anthony, it’s time for your breakfast.”

Dr. Red uncovered the plate to reveal a steaming breakfast tray with eggs, ham, and toast cut into small pieces with butter and jam on the side and orange juice with a straw sticking out.  

“Let’s get some food in your stomach and we’ll get you ready to take your medicine,” Dr. Red said, spraying sanitizer into his hands before cutting up Angel’s food with the fork and knife on the side.  

The gargoyle demon picked up a piece of ham with the fork and offered the food to Angel.

Dr. Red held the fork in front of Angel’s mouth and cooed, “Here comes the airplane coming into the hangar now.  Easy does it…”

Angel opened his mouth and bit the ham off the fork, swallowing all his pride with the food in his mouth.

“Alrighty then,” Dr. Red said, putting down the fork to jot down some notes on his notepad.  “Subject now seems to be obedient.”

Dr. Red quickly rubbed some sanitizer on his hands before he returned to feeding Angel and said, “I’m so glad to see that you’re now obeying me, Anthony.”

Angel didn’t respond, except to sit back comfortably in his chair and open his mouth so that Dr. Red could continue to feed him like a baby.  

Dr. Red picked up another fork full of food, fed Angel, and said, “You don’t know how happy you’ll be when you’re straight.  I know the treatment feels harsh now, but you’ll thank me for it later.  At least, I hope you will.  None of my other patients ever thanked me when I was alive…”

Without changing his facial expression in the slightest, Angel chewed his food while Doctor Red prepared the next bite and continued, “…You see, I was part of the Eugenics Movement at the turn of the last century, a movement dedicated to improving the genetic quality of the human population through selective breeding and the sterilization and suppression of the inferior and unfit.  One way I helped keep the fit, superior members of the white middle- and upper-class strong was by helping parents whip their wayward sons and daughters into shape whenever they were more interested in pursuing their lusts than in doing their duty of increasing the white superior stock with advantageous marriages, if you know what I mean…”

It was all Angel could do to hold his tongue.  As he received the next bites of food, he chewed his food into mush without swallowing just to keep himself from saying anything.

“…I kept these rebellious children from eloping, from committing miscegenation, and of course, from engaging in sexually deviant relationships, like you.  I did such a good job with them.  They married advantageously and produced genetically superior children.  But none of them ever thanked me.  I can’t figure out why…Anthony, you need to swallow your breakfast or you’re going to choke on it.”

Angel reluctantly swallowed and bit his lip while Dr. Red picked up his knife and spread jelly and butter on the pieces of toast.  If it weren’t for his restraints, Angel would have been fidgeting uncomfortably.

Completely oblivious to the discomfort Angel was feeling, Dr. Red continued, “Anyways, I don’t know why none of my patients ever thanked me.  I mean, most of them didn’t want to be there.  Sure.  Others tried to fight me and had to be given medicine and special treatments like you.  But still others seemed willing and left happy.  I don’t know why they didn’t thank me.  Those ingrates!  Some of them even committed suicide!”

Angel couldn’t take it much longer.  Thankfully, Dr. Red fed him pieces of toast before and after he continued speaking.

“I don’t understand why God sent me here either,” Dr. Red said, gently feeding Angel a piece of jelly toast.  “I directed human evolution in a positive direction for him.  I did so much to improve the white race and the black race when they gave us the opportunity to improve them.  I helped people defy their base desires for the greater good of reproducing a superior stock!  Surely, that’s a noble cause that heaven must recognize!”

Angel finished eating his toast and Dr. Red placed a straw in a glass of orange juice and offered it to him.

“What an ungrateful bastard he must be to deny that!” Dr. Red raved while Angel managed to get the straw in his mouth.  “If it weren’t for the Eugenics Movement, there would be even more burdens than there are now.  It’s not our fault that Adolf Hitler decided to go as far as he did…Wait, Anthony.”

Dr. Red pulled the straw away just as Angel was about to take his first sip and said, “I almost forgot.  I need to give you your medicine.  Hold on a moment.”

Dr. Red took out a white prescription bottle and took out a red-colored pill that looked like no pill that even Angel had ever tried before.  

He eyed it nervously while Dr. Red took it in his fingers and said, “Open wide, Anthony, and don’t worry.  This pill will help you feel better.  I know.  I made it myself.”

That hardly reassured Angel.  Despite his usual penchant for drugs, he didn’t want this one.  Even if it did what the good doctor said, Angel knew there was more to it than what he said there was.  It was meant to keep him under their control, just like Val kept him under his…

“Anthony, you don’t need to be nervous,” Dr. Red said, interrupting Angel’s thoughts.  “Open up…Oh.”

Angel opened his mouth wide and allowed the doctor to drop the pill in his mouth.

“Good boy,” Dr. Red praised while offering Angel his orange juice again.  “Now, drink this and wash down your pill so we can get you into your bath.”

Angel obediently sipped his orange juice through the straw until it was all gone.

When he finished the drink, Dr. Red put the cup back on the tray, petted Angel’s head, and praised, “What a good boy!  You’re behaving very well.”

Dr. Red then picked a napkin off the cart and wiped the crumbs and juice off Angel’s face.  

Once he was done, Dr. Red took the tray to the sink.  While he wasn’t looking, Angel opened his mouth, lowered his tongue with the pill wrapped around in it, dropped the pill, and let it fall onto the floor.

Angel smiled to himself.  That was a trick he had learned long ago when dealing with Val.  It was one of the few tricks he rarely caught on to.

“Alright, Anthony,” Dr. Red said as he finally made his way back to the chair and started unbuckling Angel’s restraints.  “It’s time for your bath.  For now, your baths will be lukewarm to hold down your urges until you are strong enough to resist temptation and expose yourself to hot water again.”

Angel nodded silently and sat patiently while Dr. Red unbuckled the last of the restraints.

Dr. Red then helped Angel to his feet, put a hand behind his back, and guided him gently to the bathroom.  

The bathroom was a plain one with white tile and a white toilet on one side, a sink, and a shower with a tub to match on the other side of the room.  There was no color to be found except for the soap bottles on the shelf beside the tub.  Even the towel hanging on the rack below the shelf between the wall and the door and the mats on the floor were white.

Dr. Red turned the faucets on and put in the stopper.  The lukewarm water began filling up the tub while Angel watched patiently, resisting every urge to kick Dr. Red into the tub himself.

Dr. Red turned to Angel, requested for him to turn around, and finally undid the straps of his straitjacket.  

“There, we go,” Dr. Red said with a warm smile as he pulled the jacket off and carried it out of the room.

Angel moved his arms around in relief at finally being able to use them again.  He retracted his third pair of arms and stretched his two other pairs of arms around to get the blood flowing.  

Angel turned and looked at himself in the mirror.  The white shirt and black pants Alastor put on him the other day were still there looking slovenly yet classy, too classy for his taste.  As soon as he got the feeling back in his arms, Angel began unbuttoning the shirt to let his fluffy chest breathe.

Unfortunately, before he could get too comfortable, Dr. Red walked in and coughed to get his attention.

“Anthony, you should wait for me to leave before you start undressing,” Dr. Red reprimanded.

Angel looked at himself in the mirror, summoned the most defeated look he could muster, turned around to face the good doctor, and said, “I’m sorry, doctor.”

Dr. Red’s disappointed look slid back into a warm smile and he said, “All is forgiven, Anthony.  Now take a look at your new clothes.”

Angel looked down and tried not to grimace at the clothing in Dr. Red’s arms.  It was the gray uniform that Vaggie described.  

It was a gray long-sleeved t-shirt, long gray slacks, a white undershirt, a gray pair of underwear, and a gray pair of flats to cover his feet.  By anyone’s standards, the clothes were atrociously dull.

“Do you like your new clothes?” Dr. Red asked, raising an eyebrow.  

“Oh, uh, they’re just fine, Doctor,” Angel replied shyly as he held his arms open to take the clothes.

“Excellent,” Dr. Red said, dropping the clothes into Angel’s arms.  “You have seven other uniforms just like this one in case this one gets dirty.  I’ll wash them weekly to make sure you always have a clean outfit to wear.”

“Thank you, doctor,” Angel replied.

Dr. Red smiled and walked past him to turn off the water in the tub.  

“You may take your bath now, Anthony,” Dr. Red said, reaching outside the room and placing a white basket in between the door and the tub.  “I shall go upstairs to eat breakfast with your father and brother.  Then, I’ll come back here and clean up your kitchenette.  Please do remember.  Turning on hot water is not allowed yet, so don’t turn it on.”

“Yes, doctor,” Angel said submissively.

“As for the clothes you’re wearing now, please put them into basket you see there,” Dr. Red said, gesturing with one hand while holding the other hand behind his back.

“Yes, doctor,” Angel replied.  “Is there anything else?”

In one swift movement, Angel felt the gargoyle doctor’s stone arms wrap around his chest and hold him close.  Dr. Red’s lips curled into a smile as he shut his eyes and leaned against Angel.

If Dr. Red could see Angel’s expression, he would have seen his face contort in confusion at the sudden mood swing.  And Angel thought Val had wild mood swings…

“I’m so happy to be working with you, Angel,” Dr. Red whispered.  “I know this is hard, but I’ll get you through it.  I promise.”

Angel’s mouth fell open in absolute bewilderment and his eyes stared down at the doctor holding him for an uncomfortably long time.  

They stood there like that for over a minute with Angel at a complete loss for how to react.  He literally felt like he was embracing a statue and he might as well have been.  The stony body was hard, cold, and confining.  

Angel looked down at Dr. Red’s face and grimaced.  The doctor’s expression was a genuinely warm and comforting smile that he found more unnerving than comforting.  

Angel kept his form rigid transferring the clothes he was wearing to his lowest pair of arms to make his position more comfortable.  Apparently taking that as a sign that he wanted to be comforted even more, Dr. Red moved even closer and held Angel more tightly for yet another long, uncomfortable minute.    

So, Angel stood still, not knowing whether this was a test or an honest-to-God attempt to show compassion.

Finally, Dr. Red let go and said enthusiastically, “Enjoy your bath, Anthony.  I must go meet with your father without any further delay to discuss your treatment plan.”

Without another word, Dr. Red left the bathroom and shut the door behind him.

Angel stood there completely dumbfounded until he heard Doctor Red climb up to the top of the stairs and lock the basement door behind him.  

When he was sure Doctor Red was gone, Angel stepped back until he reached the toilet and sat down.  He sighed deeply for a moment before setting his new clothes down, undressing, and climbing into his lukewarm bath.

[dukeofriven]

So, you probably don’t care, but your rant about computers all sucking came up as “in my orbit” because I follow a lot of computer science blogs. The people tumblr is most likely to show your anti Computer Scientist rant to, is computer scientists.

Yeah I was pretty cranky when I wrote that. My quest to read everything Andrew Hussie ever wrote dumped me into a 1700 word article of his where he kvetches about Apple and a trip to Macworld in 2006. The first half is maybe the most infantile, exhausting, shitty thing he ever wrote. Worse than the HIC/Hitler thing, worse than Stoner Lou, worse than the racist chicken - it’s just one part boring to one part childish. It wasn’t until I was talking to @rahkshirock​ about it that I realized he was throwing an honest-to-god Karkat tantrum for a thousand words, ripping Apple to shreds in really lazy and strangely hostile ways. (Podcasts. He goes on and on about how horrible the very idea of a podcast is. It’s almost comically petulant.)So I got so sick of his shit and I vented about it to Tumblr then went back to the article. At which point he had, of course, calmed the fuck down and the second half makes some really good and valuable critiques about problems Apple actually had/has - but that first section was so specious and exhausting I just kind of lost it.I’ve been bitter about computers ever since my university days. There are, broadly speaking, two types of CS students: those who graduate knowing nothing about computers save that the devil machines are not to be trusted, and those who graduated knowing everything about computers and who feel that they (the student) should be worshipped because they posses the secret digital mysteries that lesser mortals are not gifted enough to be able to comprehend. (It’s a neurodevelopmental disorder that falls under a diagnostic umbrella called STEM-Up-Their-Ass Syndromes. It kills tens of thousands of promising personalities every year, and there is currently no cure.)The former type tends to live off the grid in shacks on mountains and occasionally posts some fragment of code via phone phreaking that is an incredible thing of beauty and will improve society as a whole, or else they, like Jonathan Gillette, know that computer literacy is the only way civilization can save itself from predatory tech companies and they do their best to teach some crumb of their wisdom to the common people before they go mad from the strain of oracular vision and vanish from the mortal plain. (Jonathan Gillette is the only reason I can get anything to run under wine. Though I retain essentially zero working knowledge of Ruby I feel his spirit forever at my back urging me onwards to at least try so as not to disappoint my pet ham).The other kind of CS student is among the worst specimens of humanity this side of Peter Thiel: they retain a deep sense of resentment because they were oppressed for their religious beliefs (Early-Day Conservative Weeabooism) in high school, think having a natural facility with math places them highly in a caste system of their own fevered imaginings, and are forbidden by their religion from applying deodorant because mortification of the flesh is a way to show their devotion to their church’s martyred founder. (A guy called Kevin Johnson, a COBOL programmer who preached his gospel unto Usenet from his parent’s basement in Plano, Texas and was taken from this world in 1993 when a large Bubblegum Crisis poster fell upon him and pinned him to the ground, where he subsequently drowned in a puddle of Crystal Pepsi - although, according to traditional ‘Cweeaboo’ beliefs, before his mortal body perished his true essence was freed from its sweat-slick shell by the Incorrupt And Perfectly Rational Pneuma of Bertrand Russell and stored in the Russian/Spanish subtitles on a bootleg betamax of the finale to Super Dimensional Fortress Macross. The day this bootleg is rediscovered and played the rivers will run with ramune, the air across America will buzz with the sound of Tanna japonensis, and Anime Will Finally Be Good Again. (A splinter-sect of Cweeaboo, known as Conservadox Weeabooism, believes that it was not an Macross bootleg but a pristine laserdisc of volume 5 of The Irresponsible Captain Tylor, and that on its discovery the rivers will run red with Jolt.))These CS students are almost universally white, cis-male, in need of a remedial course on fundamental hygiene tips, and think Deadpool is straight.If this sounds like a grossly unfair stereotype you are correct and I would normally never stoop to saying something so nonsensical, but in university I had courses in the Computer Science building and I encountered these people every single day. It was really rather incredible from a sociological standpoint: ‘oh my goodness how can you possibly exist as a real legal adult quick point me to the TV show you escaped from and I’ll help you return.’ But, no, there they were in the flesh, with thirty more waiting in the wings - they had some psychic power that told then if you had watched an anime at least once and they would pounce while you waited for class to start in order to interrogate you and ensure you had The Right Beliefs About The Choicest Waifus. They were in constant competition with the economics students for ‘conversation I am most willing to chew my own arm off in order to escape’ and are a good reason why I advocate for Misdemeanor Douchebaggery statues in institutions of higher learning across the continent.The first type of CS student will help you with your tech problems, never shame you for your hardware or the hows and whys of why you own it, will listen to your woes, and survived their CS program without murdering their fellow students - which probably qualifies them for sainthood. They often, but not exclusively, identify as female, tend to have a wicked sense of humour, and can usually debone and serve a sexist male like a Wimbledon Champion in under fifteen seconds.There is also supposedly a third kind of CS student, the so-called ‘ordinary person’ who is said to have graduated without making an ass of themselves at a party, runs the servers at their local insurance company, lives in a suburb, and finds The Big Bang Theory funny. I have never met such a person and have come to believe they are a myth created by car companies as the ideal buyer persona for mid-range sedans.Anyways since university I have approached computers and their advocates with great suspicion and mistrust. The last decade of rising technocratic malevolence has really only proven the correctness of my position: you’d have thought that weebs would have known better than to not only build a soulless android but also allow it to attend Harvard, but the Objectifying Women protocols were so wearingly on-brand that the apocalyptic hubris of the Zuckerborg Project isn’t all that surprising.Anyways, computers suck, and anyone who wants to make you feel inferior for using one kind of computer over another kind of computer is the sort of person who will try and convince you that there’s a meaningful moral distinction between Gatorade and Powerade. Also Andrew Hussie has, or at least had, a bee up his ass about podcasts that made him sound like an iPod-fixated Alex Jones and his rant on the subject is very hard to sit through.This probably didn’t answer your question, if you had a question, but I’m sure it created a lot of questions, which is all you can really expect from me.

[perminas-archive]

tl;dr

Mom,

So this is going to be a super long, super emotional one. Brace yourself! I love you so much, unconditionally.

I have inattentive type ADD. There is no way you could have known that. Almost all the research on kids with ADD/ADHD when I was growing up was geared towards prepubescent boys with ADHD.

Girls with inattentive type ADD don't usually present symptoms until after puberty, and they aren't hyperactive.

Girls with inattentive type ADD who are highly intelligent and interested in school and who are competitive, even today, go unnoticed because for a long time, because schoolbook intelligence and a competitive instinct can mask symptoms.

Girls with inattentive type ADD are super interested in conforming to what a girl should be, because all girls grow up with that kind of damage. The research on girls with inattentive type ADD began to be published in 2008-2009, by which time I was already in college.

It may seem weird to think that I have ADD because I have so many obsessive interests. You've heard me play the same song 12 times in a row (at a generous minimum), obsessively fiddling with the volume. I can play the Sims or World of Warcraft for 12 hours straight. I can finish a book in a day.

But ADD comes with the ability to hyperfocus, and if you're interested in school, you can hyperfocus on it. You can knock out a 10-page research paper in a few hours. Which is what I did, all the way through high school and college, while bringing a novel to classes I didn't like. Because I was just a genius, right? It made sense that someone so highly intelligent would work that way, Nutty Professor style. Hyperfocus also sometimes means you get so obsessed with a video game or a TV show that you call in sick to work because you can't stop playing or watching - you really can't stop. That happens too. I can't explain why I can't stop, but I need you to believe that I CAN'T. I CAN'T. It's too deep.

For highly intelligent inattentive type ADD girls, apparently the only place it really shows up young is (a) inability to follow pattern-based social rules and (b) failure in areas where there is a lack of interest but not ability.

I remember Dad saying "You're not bad at math. You just don't like it and you're not trying." I didn't believe him at the time, but now I do, because I can take a differential in calculus as long as I have a funny teacher.

Girls with inattentive type ADD show signs mostly after puberty, beginning  at 11-12. These signs may not be things you think of as ADD - failure in class, inability to focus on school, resistance to learning, anger-related behavioral problems at home. Instead it often looks more like inability to finish chores, problems with grooming, problems with keeping one's room clean, problems with maintaining friendships, problems with relationships and intimacy, problems with bringing home forms from school that aren't crushed into your pocket, covered in crumbs, five days late - a total inability to focus on things that don't interest you. Basic kid stuff, but weirdly stretched through adolescence. Sound familiar? Sound super familiar? The kind of thing that makes you feel like a failure as a mother?

(Sorry. That's my only intentional jab. That one haunts me. I know you know it does and you didn't mean it. But it stuck around, and it will for the rest of my life.)

Inattentive type ADD, particularly in intelligent girls, also comes with increased sensitivity to rejection and criticism, possibly because children with ADD know they're different from other kids but can't prove or articulate it. When they hear things like "You're smarter than this," "I don't know what you were thinking," and "How could you be so careless?" they don't think "My behavior was wrong." They think "There is something wrong with me. Aren't I smarter than this? What was I thinking? Why was I so careless? I don't understand, and everyone is talking to me like this is a decision I made to be careless and stupid and disrespectful, but I'm still not completely sure what it was that I thought wrong that turned into an action. It seems more like I felt and thought wrong from the get-go. There must be something deeply wrong with me." And they can't explain it, because even though they know what they're experiencing with learning in school and at home is different from other kids, they don't really know why. They think it's something wrong with them at a level too deep to be corrected. It has to be masked, particularly with girls, because a problem like that that you can't fix is a reason not to love you.

When I was growing up, you and Dad had a major focus on lectures as opposed to physical punishment, which was great. The lectures tended to focus on guilt as a mechanism to correct behavior. THIS PROBABLY WOULD HAVE WORKED WITH NORMAL KIDS! But it doesn't with a kid who inherently feels that she is wrong and her actions are wrong, full stop. Guilt becomes associated to the person, not the action. Guilt turns into shame.

This is a list of traits of adult women who were subject to "shame-based parenting," aka you, or regular parenting that focused on personal responsibility, aka me:

1. Adults shamed as children are afraid of vulnerability and fear exposure of self.

2. Adults shamed as children may suffer extreme shyness, embarrassment and feelings of being inferior to others. They don't believe they make mistakes. Instead they believe they are mistakes.

3. Adults shamed as children fear intimacy and tend to avoid real commitment in relationships. These adults frequently express the feeling that one foot is out of the door, prepared to run.

4. Adults shamed as children may appear either grandiose and self-centered or seem selfless.

5. Adults shamed as children feel that, “No matter what I do, it won't make a difference; I am and always will be worthless and unlovable.”

6. Adults shamed as children frequently feel defensive when even minor negative feedback is given. They suffer feelings of severe humiliation if forced to look at mistakes or imperfections.

7. Adults shamed as children frequently blame others before they can be blamed.

8. Adults shamed as children may suffer from debilitating guilt. These individuals apologize constantly. They assume responsibility for the behavior of those around them.

9. Adults shamed as children feel like outsiders. They feel a pervasive sense of loneliness throughout their lives, even when surrounded with those who love and care.

10. Adults shamed as children project their beliefs about themselves onto others. They engage in mind-reading that is not in their favor, consistently feeling judged by others.

11. Adults shamed as children often feel angry and judgmental towards the qualities in others that they feel ashamed of in themselves. This can lead to shaming others.

12. Adults shamed as children often feel ugly, flawed and imperfect. These feelings regarding self may lead to focus on clothing and makeup in an attempt to hide flaws in personal appearance and self.

13. Adults shamed as children often feel controlled from the outside as well as from within. Normal spontaneous expression is blocked.

14. Adults shamed as children feel they must do things perfectly or not at all. This internalized belief frequently leads to performance anxiety and procrastination.

15. Adults shamed as children experience depression.

16. Adults shamed as children lie to themselves and others.

17. Adults shamed as children block their feelings of shame through compulsive behaviors like workaholism, eating disorders, shopping, substance-abuse, list-making or gambling.

18. Adults shamed as children often have caseloads rather than friendships.

19. Adults shamed as children often involve themselves in compulsive processing of past interactions and events and intellectualization as a defense against pain.

20. Adults shamed as children are stuck in dependency or counter-dependency.

21. Adults shamed as children have little sense of emotional boundaries. They feel constantly violated by others. They frequently build false boundaries through walls, rage, pleasing or isolation.

Every single item on this list is true of me. When I read it for the first time, I felt like I was having a truly religious moment of clarity. Every single thing. Reading back over it now, I wonder if you aren't having the same feelings about yourself and your own horrifying mother, who was actually engaging in some truly disgusting shame-based parenting. No one should ever call a kid Dummy. You're brilliant, and I'm sure you were as a kid. I love talking to you. I recommend books and podcasts to you, NEVER Dad, because you're smart enough and aware enough to get them, and not an asshole.

Like, I get that she was your mom and you must have loved her. But from every story you've ever told me about her, I hate her for your sake. She was awful to you. You deserved so much better. Thank God for Paul. He's the only person I've ever seen in your life who truly tries to validate you other than me, and my validation is of VERY LATE ORIGIN. You are valid. You're so smart, and so good.

When I was about 11 or 12, I had an epiphany that shaped the rest of my life. It was a false epiphany, for the record. I thought that you didn't actually see me when you were trying to fix me. I convinced myself that you had imagined a better daughter, one with potential and who was capable of change. I knew that person wasn't me. Every time you talked to me about the things that were wrong, I knew for a fact I couldn't fix it, no matter how simple it was. I knew that no matter how hard I tried to force it, I couldn't really change the person I was. I had already tried. I'd tried and tried and I wasn't getting better.

I imagined that I was two people: Charlotte, the real me, the mean, ugly, bitchy, hateful person who fucked up constantly and resented everyone and talked back; and Charlotte Prime, the imaginary daughter who fucked up but had potential, who could be more if she chose, who was loved by her parents, who was capable of change and would grow up right and beautiful. Charlotte Prime seemed like a stranger, but she was also the beloved one.

I convinced myself that you only saw Charlotte Prime. You looked at me and saw the potential. You looked at me and thought how much better and happier I could be if I cut away the bad stuff, the inability to look after myself physically, the meanness, the moods. You didn't know that I, the real Charlotte, even existed. You loved a completely separate, imaginary person as your daughter. You looked at me and loved Charlotte Prime, not me. I couldn't ever let you know I wasn't her. I didn't know if you'd still love me if you figured out I wasn't her and she didn't exist.

I knew (thought) I couldn't change and couldn't cut away the bad stuff. I was killing myself day in and day out to be the perfect dinner guest, to be pretty, to be soft-spoken and charming, to be cute at all times. And it wasn't working. I was intelligent and charming, but I was still brash, dirty, ugly, disrespectful, and according to you and Dad extremely prone to challenge you with sarcasm (which I don't actually remember doing, mostly I assume because I didn't realize I was doing it). But I thought I could probably fake enough change to get by. I'm a decent liar. I could force the ugly parts of me you wanted to cut away small enough that you wouldn't see them, that you'd think I'd fixed them. I could look like Charlotte Prime if nobody looked long enough. I would just have to let the bad parts out in small ways when nobody was looking - eating all the chocolate chips in the kitchen and blaming it on Dad, buying junk food from the vending machines at school with change from the couch and cars, being mean to my friends, hiding in my room all the time so you couldn't see me.

When I was 16, on Mother's Day at Hooters, we had some kind of tiff I don't remember and I was trying to explain myself, and you were (to me, at the time, smugly) justifying your position. And I thought: "Just roll over. Just let her have it. It's not worth it and you'll be out in two years."

That thought carried through the rest of my life. Just let her have it. Just let her be right. Not because she's stupid and it's easier to tell her she's right; but because she's fiercely intelligent, and she'll figure out your lie about Charlotte Prime if you don't let her be right, because you need this lie to survive.

I really, really didn't think you'd love me if you ever figured out I was a monster. If I really was that person who couldn't wash her hair or clean her room. That was wrong and untrue. I know now that you'd love me even if I sent you a text full of pictures of people I'd serial-killed.

But I still knew (thought) that something was wrong with me fundamentally. That I had to demonstrate goodness that was not my own to be worthy of love, to pretend to be the person you loved at all.

I went to Dad's confirmation in the church in April of some year, and I was really sick but felt I had to come anyway. I thought I had to, as a condition of parental love. You didn't put that on me. I put it on myself. I was very sick.

At the confirmation, I got so sick that I couldn't stop coughing and went into the sacristy or the guest lounge or something to avoid further disruption. You followed me, and were so honestly concerned by my health that I ended up confessing that I had never felt good enough for you, and showing up at the confirmation was an attempt at being good enough.

You were sympathetic for a bit and tried to comfort me, but eventually screamed "DON'T YOU PUT THAT SHIT ON ME" re: my feelings of inadequacy and fled the room. And I was, of course, miserable. I couldn't stop crying. After a while I came back out, still crying, dreading you'd see my emotion as a manipulation. I understand your feelings too, I think. You've always thought of me as smarter and better than yourself. To hear that I felt inferior must have been severely jarring and a significant reverse of what you thought was going on. My emotions and behavior might have looked like manipulation, because your own mother manipulated you that way.

But you're my mother. I love you. Maybe I didn't explain it correctly - I was in a monster mood last time. I felt wrong, and I was trying to confess the lie about Charlotte Prime without fully articulating it. You running out on me hurt me deeply. I haven't been able to fully trust you since then. I actually don't know if I can again. I thought it was the end. I thought you figured it out, that I wasn't ever going to turn into the person you loved, Charlotte Prime with all her potential. You were stuck with your ugly, vicious daughter. And you didn't even like her, much less love her.

I could never trust you again. Not because you're untrustworthy - but because you had figured it out. It was as if you were my mother, but I wasn't your daughter.

You've heard me talk about my depression and anxiety as "chemical" mostly because yoga and fruit doesn't fix it. It's something deep in me that can't be corrected by a simple behavioral change. It's intense, easily triggered, and mostly uncontrollable. But I wasn't born with it - maybe with a predisposition to it, but not with it in my brain. Inattentive type ADD and the neuroses that accompany highly intelligent girls throughout their lives develops into depression and anxiety on an extremely regular basis. A lot of the research into girls with inattentive type ADD came after treating adult women with anxiety and depression who responded better to antidepressants combined with ADD medication that gave them the ability to focus. Difficulty focusing is also a depressive trait.

Learning to hate yourself young changes your brain forever. Staying hating yourself when you've grown up changes the way you think, changes the balance of chemicals in your brain. It's the opposite of what happens when someone believes so intensely in faith healing they shrink their tumors. I made myself sick, unconsciously.

I'm still sick. I know what I did, but I can't fix it yet. I can't even completely stop the patterns of thinking that make me sicker. When you and Dad would lecture me, I took from those lectures that feeling horrible was a part of correcting the problem, maybe the most important part - something was wrong with me, but feeling horrible would sink into my bones and fix it over time. I started yelling at myself in my head in your voice whenever I made mistakes, because I thought feeling horrible enough about it would deter me from it in the future. That's still a primary method of self-correction for me. It's only in the last year or two that I recognized I didn't need to do that. Feeling wretched wasn't a part of fixing the problem. It just made me feel (horrible and) helpless, which actually prevented me from fixing the problem.

That's what I mean when I say I hear your voice in my head every day. I hear myself yelling in your voice, because when I was growing up I learned that hearing yelling and feeling horrible was a fundamental part of correcting the bad behavior I couldn't control that made me wrong, bad, different from other kids, that I had to hide or else you wouldn't love me, because you'd figure it out. I had to take over from you so you'd think I was changing. I had to be the person doing the yelling, and it had to sound like you, so I could be scared enough and controlled enough in your presence to fake Charlotte Prime.

I still think that way. At work, I also feel like there's me, Charlotte, who makes tons of mistakes, gossips, spends an hour bullshitting with the admins instead of working, comes in late, forgets about projects, has to come in weekends to make up time. And then there's Charlotte Prime, who's well-spoken, intelligent, who the partners love, who is capable of editing out the "careless" (ADD) errors in her work and eventually fulfilling her potential as a perfect paralegal. They hired Charlotte Prime. I feel like I'm running a scam all the time. No matter how many times they tell me they love me and I can't ever quit, I feel like they're talking to Charlotte Prime. If they knew it was me, Charlotte, they were talking to, they wouldn't bother. Prime has all the potential. Charlotte has all the attitude and mistakes.

I do love my new meds. I was previously on Zoloft, an SSRI, which I hated, because it did nothing for me. Then I was on Wellbutrin, a mood stabilizer and antidepressant, that half worked. Now I'm on Pristiq, which is on the label used to treat both depression and ADD/ADHD. I've actually noticed my focus and concentration improving. It's miraculous. It's not perfect, and I think I want to talk to my shrink about a supplement that is pure ADD medication, but it's such an improvement, because it's actually treating the base cause, not the symptom. Being able to read a simple 10-page estate-planning document all the way through without getting distracted because I didn't care was a bizarre and amazing experience. I felt like I was ascending - like I could become Prime. Prime wasn't a stranger anymore. She was me, medicated. Maybe I wasn't tricking everyone. Maybe I really could become her, but the way I was trying to get there had to be rethought.

I still pretty much think I'm tricking everyone. But it's getting easier to believe that people might honestly love the real me, the fuckup, and to integrate my good behavior self with my bad behavior self, especially as I get older and realize that everyone else is a fuckup too. They might not have ADD to contend with, but by god they've got something. People are all so weird and such idiots and I love them all so much. I love working in an office and living in apartment buildings and being in the city because everyone around you is held artificially close, and you get to see them fucking up and being weird.  

These days, I'm focusing on recognizing when I'm yelling at myself in my head and saying "You don't need to do that. That isn't fixing the problem, it's just making you panic. You'll be more effective at fixing the problem if you stop yelling at yourself." Because even as I'm getting better at recognizing my worth, I still primarily feel like fixing the problem in my behavior is more important than my happiness, but I'm getting closer. I really like Charlie, my new therapist. I don't know if he likes me, but I know he doesn't dislike me the way Julie did. And I think it's better if a therapist doesn't absolutely love you. My first two therapists thought I was the bee's knees, and when it came time to terminate, something weird happened that I think is best encapsulated by this quote from an episode of This American Life:

Terry Gross: In your chapter about your therapist, you have a great description of yourself when describing your thoughts after telling the therapist that you are going to stop seeing him. And I’d like you to read that for us.

David Rakoff: Yes. This is when he— I’m not talking about terminating. I seem to be avoiding the topic. And finally he stops me one day. I’m ranting about, I think, human rights in China or something like that. And he finally says, look, we’ve got to talk about you terminating. This is a big thing.

"Turning things around, I asked him what his feelings were about our ending things. ‘I’m incredibly angry,’ he responded fondly. ‘How dare you. You should at least have to come and have coffee with me once a week.’ I asked if he felt this way about most of his patients. ‘Not really,’ he responded.

Sigh. Should you happen to be possessed of a certain verbal acuity coupled with a relentless hair trigger humor and surface cheer spackling over a chronic melancholia and loneliness— a grotesquely caricatured version of your deepest self which you trot out at the slightest provocation to endearing and glib comic effect, thus rendering you the kind of fellow who is beloved by all yet loved by none, all of it to distract, however fleetingly, from the cold and dead-faced truth that with each passing year you face the unavoidable certainty of a solitary future in which you will perish one day while vainly attempting the Heimlich maneuver on yourself over the back of the kitchen chair— then this confirmation that you have triumphed again and managed to gull yet another mark, except this time it was the one person you’d hoped might be immune to your ever-creakier, puddle-shallow, sideshow-barker variation on ‘adorable,’ even though you’d been launching this campaign weekly with a single-minded concentration from day one— well, it conjures up feelings that are best described as mixed, to say the least.”

I'm getting better at that. I care if Charlie likes me, because I care if anyone likes me, but I don't care if Charlie likes me at the expense of the truth. I don't lie to him. I don't focus on being charming. I focus on getting better.

I think I'm getting better. I think it's going to take a long fucking time, which is frustrating because I want results NOW. But I'm getting better. I'm never going to be Prime, but I can integrate the two mes. I can be good enough. I am good enough. Everyone makes mistakes, and mine aren't a symbol of my wrongness. They're a symptom.

HMB has really been game-changing for me. I've never worked in an office where I was considered smart and valuable enough to make up for my constant stream of mistakes, or at least where I recognized that people felt that way about me. I still feel like I'm running a scam and people can't possibly see all the mistakes or I'd be fired, but I've fucked up, visibly, hugely, and not been shamed for it - I just fix the error and demonstrate that I'm trying to improve, and I'm forgiven. And I'm finally starting to see other people of my age and my ability making similar mistakes. Some of my mistakes are the ADD or other stuff at work, but a ton of them are about being human. Growing up, hating my mistakes, I convinced myself that other people didn't make them at all, which in retrospect is completely insane. Of course everyone makes mistakes. But when I can see Izabela transposing numbers in our billing, it's like heroin. She did it too! Type-A Izabela occasionally misreads numbers, so maybe it's not a function of my wrongness that I do too. Maybe it's just something that happens.

I'm getting better. I'm getting better. I can be better. This isn't forever. Honestly, if you've ever worried about me being suicidal, know this: I've always been permanently optimistic about precisely one thing, which is that no matter how miserable I am now, my life may someday get better. I can't kill myself because I don't know the future and I don't want to miss out. And I AM getting better. It's happening. Sometimes I think about suicide in an offhand, what-if, "A Christmas Story" way, but it's never been a real idea. I've never truly considered it. And I'm glad, because I can get better. I'm never fully going to be able to morph into Charlotte Prime, but that's also OK. Everyone has some kind of damage, and I can manage my own. I can actually get it smaller through different methodology. I can change the way it affects me, change the way I think. I already have - being able to tell myself yelling internally isn't helpful was a game-changer too. I see a future where I'm OK. I know you love me, Charlotte. I know, somewhere deep down, that Charlotte with all her fuckups is the person my coworkers and friends see. Charlotte Prime is my own monster in the closet. I love people the most when I can see their dark spots. When I found your diary in high school and realized you had been an alcoholic, I loved you more, because you were fucking up. I thought: oh my God, she's like me. She's a human, not a demigod. We're the same on some level. She has a Prime, too. Why can't she tell that I love my own human mother more than Mom Prime? Why does she have to pretend all the time?

You know why.

I love you so much. Thank you for being my mom. You did an amazing job. The way I thought about myself wasn't your fault. It was something you couldn't have known, because my every hour was dedicated to concealing it and nursing it internally and there was no guidebook. I'm so glad I went to therapy as an adult and could figure it out. I don't know who I would be without it. I'm glad you went to therapy, divorced Dad, married Paul. You're leveling up too.

I love you.