H o w l

... You aren't ready to hear the true number.

Go do that. But do it somewhere out in the sun, because you're going to feel better for it.

So, as I said earlier...

Get cared about, asshole.

These are all key parts of you, I believe. So, no matter what, I think that the people who surround you will stay by you. So, I don't think you have to be scared you'll be left all alone.

And, for everything that's uncertain, your faith in the ethics code remains, doesn't it? I know it does, because if it didn't, you'd be gloating about being an asshole more often.

I think that those parts, and your willingness to make places better than you left them - even when that process is annoying, and complained about a lot - are reasons why you attract so many people.

How you melt when you see a bat, how you get so caught up in sketching designs you notice little else, how you get giddy when you have a surprise you think will make someone you care about happy... I think those are you.

These predictabilities don't come from those lies, but from who you are - whatever the shape of that is.

I won't press again on the original subject for now but... I don't think you'll be much different than you are now. Maybe it's going to be scary but... Well... To those who know you, you're quite predictable.

It's *not* the natural reaction to carrying out your nature. It's not excitement, or contentment. I think it's a hollow ache *because* it's so counter to our nature.

Violence is only fun for us when it's a situation that *calls* for violence!

I'm sure you feel it, too. That hollow feeling when you hurt someone without intent. No, it's not guilt, it's not empathy for their pain, it's not anything society *wants* us to feel... But it's also not glee.

Well I'm pretty sure those have more to do with our desire to experience challenges, or to show what we're good at, and we just so happen to be people with an incredible mind for violence, even if not a *nature* for it.

I think that not wanting to do harm without clear personal intent is ALSO in our nature. I think our nature is far more complex than you or I were given the freedom to explore. That our occasional desires to be violent...

Only when we were reared to be destructive, reactive tyrants did we become such. If left to our own devices with enough of an inkling of what we want, time and again we make a sturdy ethics code!

Every single one of our alternates who didn't turn out to be awful world-destroying assholes did this at some point, with the exception of a hand-full who just became petty loners known less for violence and more for vanity.

Our sitting down and choosing to make an ethics code at such a horrific time in our life so we wouldn't be easy to manipulate to become a gleeful weapon is the most pure form of our nature!

Also, that wasn't luck! You went on and on about your nature and all that, but I think you have it backwards! Violence isn't in our nature - it's in our nurture.

Oh now don't you start on that! You haven't tricked anyone into liking you, in fact, you've done everything shy of actively hurting people to try and chase them off. If anyone's been tricked into liking you, it wasn't YOU doing the tricking!

... Fair. Anyway, it wasn't him. And I won't be saying who it was. You'll simply have to live with the fact there is a network of people who, rather than conspiring against you to bring you down, are conspiring in your favour.

Get cared about, asshole.

Do you genuinely think he has time to notice when you, a frequent poster, post a long ramble about how you think you're a horrible person at heart, to read it all, then send it to me?

I never logged out, I just didn't post. Anyway, I know because you are surrounded by people who care about you, and we've connected networks through which to make sure you're doing okay during rough times.

I don't know why your mind chose this in particular to get into, but we both know the best way to get you out of such a rut is to be logical about it and point it out.

Then listen instead. You just recently passed the ten year anniversary of something that was deeply traumatic for you, and you're going in to the roughest time of the year for you.

My goal is not actually to scold, it's to help you see where your brain is lying to you. I'm not sure how you got it into your mind you enjoy being worshipped, when you regularly undermine such, but I'm here to knock you out of that thought process.

And weren't you the one who, when acquiring a dog who was blindly loyal, and unable to help but love you, sort of had a panic attack and proceeded to give it to a child too gormless to ever intentionally mistreat it? I sure did!

Tell me, do you really believe that Cinders and Prinz are blindly loyal, incapable of not loving you? Really? Also, *doting*? **Really**?

Hmm... I'm low on a couple supplies... I might as well go pick my own, since they're so easily found.

Oh. I do so hate the feeling of being on the verge of understanding something important, but not quite being there. Like seeing a phantom out of the corner of your eyes, but when you turn your head it's gone.

Good. If you like, we can also work together to make something extra special to show you really *really* meant your apology!

I will.

I don't know how I feel about the idea of being just scared kids, since I spent so much of my life afraid... But I think it'd be maybe preferable.

... You should explain to her that those were the monsters you saw, and that you weren't trying to prank her, if you didn't already. You should probably apologise and tell her you didn't mean to scare her, too.

Well... Nothing good can come of this. Should I tell Ambrose? Or do you want to after?