#nothing fills me with hate more than knowing i have to work my fuckass job at this fuckass store with the fuckass skitters

[faroresson]

I think I am going to kill people at this rate (nothing special happened, it's just my monday)

[lockedstuck]

sorrow that you keep

March 2021 - Sollux Captor

“Vitals!” Dirk announces, rapping on your door with his knuckles. “C’mon, let’s get this over with so I can serve breakfast!”

When you walk out of your room, there’s already a line leading out of the treatment room. The person in front of you, a dark-skinned kid with an Angela Davis-style afro - Karkat, you think his name is - curses up a blue streak while he waits in line.

“I don’t see why I had to get a prissy fucking bastard with insomnia as my goddamn roommate. I didn’t ask for any of this fucking shit. Fucking involuntary status, fucking dumbshit Eridan, I hope this fucking hospital burns down.”

It’s too early to put up with this guy, especially with the migraine you woke up with.

“Not tryna piss you off or anything but do you think you could keep it down with your tirade?”

If looks could kill, the glare Karkat shoots you would have rendered you to a pile of smoldering ash.

“I haven’t had a cigarette in six days, it’s seven oh fuck in the morning, my roommate wakes up seventeen times a night, and I might be losing my job because my shithead brother signed me into this fucking place, so you can go straight the fuck to hell,” Karkat replies.

“Are you this obnoxious later in the day, or did they just forget to give you your ativan last night?”

“I don’t even take ativan, dumbfuck.” He squares up. Maybe if he weren’t five foot one, you’d actually be afraid. “I’ll knock you out if you keep talking, though.”

Behind you, a guy with eyes so dark that they might be violet moves to plant a hand on Karkat’s shoulder. It’s your roommate, Gamzee Makara, who appears to sleep for fifteen hours a day. Karkat surprisingly refrains from flinching or scowling. You probably wouldn’t scowl at this guy if you had the opportunity either; he’s easily six foot four, his hair curling around his ears and sticking out worse than Karkat’s.

“Now there’s no reason to get up an’ motherfucking truculent with the new guy so early in the morning.”

Karkat rolls his eyes. “Makara, if you tell me to calm down and wait for the morning miracles, I’ll kill you too.”

“There’s no need to wait, Karbro. The sunrise is a miracle in and of itself. When I looked at the ceiling in my room, I saw miracles. Everywhere.”

“They need to put you on haldol, man.”

“I don’t need no helldogs telling me what to do. I just go with the flow.”

“Of course,” Karkat says, almost fondly. “You and your motherfucking miracles.”

When it’s nearly Karkat’s turn for vitals, Dirk escorts Roxy over to the nurses’ station. She blows a kiss at Karkat, who raises his hand in half-salute. Ignacio walks out of the charting room and takes a look at her.

“Miss Lalonde, I have medication for you. This’ll help with the shakes, hypertension, and sweating.”

Roxy puts her hands on her hips and winks at him. “Again, cutiepie?”

Ignacio rolls his eyes at her and shakes his head, his mohawk moving slightly with the motion. He hands her a medication cup and a paper cup of water. She swallows her medication down fluidly, without drinking any of the water. That has to be an xbox achievement.

During breakfast, as Eridan continues to scowl and bitch about his lack of breakfast (he has ECT today), and Karkat tells him to stop being an overdramatic fuckass before he stabs him with a fork, Dr. Vandayar pulls you aside for one of his “no big deal” discussions.

Otherwise known as morning check-in.

Truth be told, you rather like Dr. V, or Krishna, which is what he told you that you could call him, even though he has a doctorate.

He got you access to sharps, your body wash, and your clothes. He means well, and aside from when he checks in every morning, he doesn’t force you to talk if you don’t want to.

“How are you doing today, Mr. Captor?” he asks.

You shrug. “I’m okay, I guess. Pretty much the same as yesterday.”

Then come the “one to tens”, as you’ve come to think of them. Krishna has his little clipboard balanced on his thigh.

“Urges to hurt other people, one to ten?”

You think of Karkat Vantas and that smug fucking look on his face.

“Two.” It’s always less than three. Maybe that’s why he starts with it.

“Urges to hurt yourself, one to ten?”

You contemplate yesterday’s DBT handout, Roxy’s outburst about self-destruction, and its many varying connotations.

“Eight,” you reply.

“Suicidal thoughts, one to ten?”

“Nine.”

“Active or passive?”

“Passive, mostly. Fleetingly active. I don’t want to live if I’m going to burden people, the usual.”

“Do you have any plans to seriously harm yourself on the unit?”

“No. Not here,” you say. “Everything I’d want to do would require me to be outside.”

“I see,” Krishna says. “Have you been seeing or hearing things that aren’t really there?”

“No.”

“What about feeling like people are out to get you, or sending you special messages?”

“No. Nothing like that. I get enough of that shit at home.”

Dr. V does not laugh at your attempt to joke about your chaotic home life.

If you were to be completely honest, you’re wondering when your medications are going to start working, or if they’re going to start working. Talking to the other patients has been a double-edged sword. So many of them have been on a million different drugs without relief.

Logically, you know that it’ll probably take whatever you’re on more than a week to cure you, but… You’re scared. You’re not in full control and it scares you. There’s a reason you slit your throat. There’s a reason you’re here.

You’re scared the melancholy will wrap itself around you like a shroud, and never relinquish its hold. You’re scared you’ll hate yourself and this life forever.

“I thank you for your honesty, Sollux,” Dr. V says, once he makes his notes. “Any uses of target behaviors that I should be aware of?”

“I cut myself with a plastic knife on Friday evening. Not deep enough to need medical attention, though.”

You scan his expression for evidence of emotion, but he has the mother of all poker faces. All he does is write your answers down in his incomprehensible shorthand,

“How did that make you feel?” he asks. “Remember, it didn’t necessarily have to make you feel anything.”

You shrug. “It helped relieve the tension in the moment, I guess.”

“But it also made me feel disappointed later on,” you go on. “Disappointed at myself. I’m such a fucking idiot for relapsing.”

Dr. V jots this down as well, and shuffles through his papers.

“I wouldn’t use that language to describe yourself. Ridding yourself of maladaptive coping mechanisms can be quite difficult, especially if they have worked for you in the past,” he says. “Nevertheless, do you think you need to be on one-to-one for a few days? So that you stop hurting yourself while you’re here?"

You shake your head vehemently. “Absolutely not. I won’t do what I did again.”

“That is reassuring to hear. I’ll refrain from filling out the paperwork that would put you on constant observation for self-injury. That said, though, there is something you also need to do to prevent that.”

You roll your eyes a little. “You want me to contract for safety, don’t you? Like, filling out one of those sheets that says I’ll grab someone else before I decide to hurt myself. Otherwise I end up on one-to-one, right?”

Dr. V nods at you, before going on. “Yes, that is the general idea. You may either fill it out with me later on in the afternoon, or with a member of the staff with whom you are more comfortable.”

“I’d rather fill it out with you, to be perfectly honest. I trust you.”

He smiles. “I am very glad to hear that, Sollux. I don’t have any further questions for the moment.”’

You get out of your conference with Krishna, and walk into the dayroom.  

Gamzee sits there, watching Good Morning America. He’s got a small smile on his face, and a faraway look in his eye, like he’s both here and not. You call his name to get his attention. It works, his dark eyes trained on you.

“You mind if I sit down?” you ask.

He shakes his head. “Naw, it’s cool. You can even change the channel if that’s somethin’ you wanna do.”

He’s built like a linebacker, all broad shoulders and muscles. He could probably snap you in half if he wanted to. You take the seat next to him and he smiles serenely at you.

“So what’s up?” he asks.

“Nothing, man. Just got outta session with Dr. V. He wanted to make sure I didn’t want to hurt myself.”

Gamzee looks thoughtful. He pulls a red paper flower out of his shorts and hands it to you.

“I folded that a couple days ago. You can have it, if you want.”

“For what?”

“For when you need to up an fuckin’ remember the miracles. Like we talked about last night.”

Last night, Gamzee harangued you at length about the Mirthful Messiahs, and the Dark Carnival, and with a practiced skill you have learned from your sibling’s rants about the NYPD following them, you tuned him out utterly. You really hope he doesn’t count you as a believer in his weird ass faith, which seems like some kind of psychotic juggalo cult.

He’s a nice guy, though. You know he’s not utterly harmless, but he seems easygoing enough. You fiddle around with and tear at a piece of paper until you have a square, which you then use to make a paper crane.

“Hey, Gamzee,” you say. He glances up at you.

“Yeah?”

You hand him the paper crane. “You know, the Japanese believe if you fold a thousand of these, you get a wish. I’m not folding a thousand cranes, but this is for you.”

“I will cherish it every day of my motherfucking life.”

You think he means it, too.

Art group is at 11. Katya herds everyone who wants to show up into the art room. So far, that’s you, Roxy, Karkat, June, Gamzee, Calliope, and Porrim. Karkat nods his head at you, and then inclines it toward the door. He wants to talk to you one-on-one. Whatever the fuck about?

He looks like he’s swallowed a lemon before he deigns to speak to you, all pursed lips and narrowed eyes. You’re tempted to ask him what the fuck’s eating him, and then he speaks.

“Listen. I want to apologize about earlier this morning,” he says. “I was in a foul fucking mood, and I need to work on not taking that shit out on other people.”

Wait, seriously? He can’t actually think you’re still upset about that; you get cursed out worse by your sibling on a daily basis, and that’s when they’re in a good mood.

“Accepted,” you reply. “Don’t worry about it, man.”

Faint relief breaks out on Karkat’s features.

Katya has all of you gather around before she constructs a box out of a weirdly shaped piece of cardboard that looks as if it’s been cut so that a small briefcase sized box could be constructed.

“These are what I like to call coping boxes. You make the box, and then you decorate it. You can put anything in here. Things that make you feel good, or that make you think, or handouts you get during other groups. Whatefur you want!”

She hands a box to each of you, after she puts out tempera and acrylic paint, colored markers, gel pens, and colored pencils.

You weren’t planning to keep any of your distress tolerance handouts in the box, but maybe you should. Gamzee’s staring at you while he paints, and that’s kind of weird, at least until you get a good look at how he’s decorating his coping box.

He’s painting halfway decent pictures of you, Roxy, Karkat, Calliope and Eridan on the front part of the box, with the word “friends”, in purple cursive.

He counts you as a friend even though the only thing you’ve really had to do with him was vaguely listen while he spouted his weird theories about the mirthful messiahs?

You have to hand it to him, though. Kid’s a real artist, probably - no, definitely - good enough to paint portraits for money over in Washington Square Park or something. Karkat gets a decent look at what Gamzee’s painting and blushes.

“Oh, come on, you didn’t have to put me on the damn box,” he says.

“But you are my best friend in the whole wide motherfucking universe,” Gamzee replies.

Karkat splutters something and looks like he’d like to object, then just sighs, and tells him to make sure he gets Karkat’s good side. 

“Hey, Gamzee!” Roxy calls.

“Yes, Roxybro?”

“Does painting that mean you’re gonna paint me like one ‘a’ your French girls one of these days?”

Gamzee gives this a good half-minute of thought.

“I ain’t up an’ got any motherfuckin’ French girls.”

Meanwhile, you focus on your tree. It looks like a lollipop with antennae, but whatever, that’s going to be as good as it gets. You ask Katya if you can get a piece of paper to paint on, she “of course”s you and hands you a piece of printer paper.

What will you paint today, Sollux Captor? More trees?

Tears spring to your eyes, and just when you think the worst is over, they start trailing down your face. Roxy recoils and apologizes to you, thinking she’s done something, and all you do is cry harder, you fuckup. You can’t do a goddamn thing right. Only things you’re good for are fixing computers and having nervous breakdowns.

Katya looks up from praising Calliope and Gamzee’s collaboration, and walks up to you.

“Hey - no, it’s okay, mew don’t have to cover your face - what’s wrong?”

She crouches so that she’s eye level with you as you sit in your chair. It somehow makes you feel even worse, like you’re some small child that can’t control their emotional outbursts. Come to think of it, you were like this as a kid, too. Tuna was the outgoing twin who made all the friends, and you were the twin who would start crying if you accidentally colored outside the lines.

“It’s alright. If you don’t want to paint, maybe you’d like to go for a walk?” she asks. You shake your head emphatically.

“I’m sorry,” you say. “It’s just that I’ve never really been good at artistic stuff. Sorry I suck so bad.”

“Art group is not about being good or bad stylistically,” Katya says. “It’s about expressing yourself. As long as you’re doing that, you’re fine. I like your tree. You and Roxy are both excellent at trees.”

Roxy, who has been sitting next to you, using highlighters to draw what looks either like a really bad tree or a neon colored mushroom cloud, gives you a small little smile.

“Wanna draw with me?” she asks.

At first, you assume she’s found some oblique way to hit on you the way she does everyone else, but then she hands you the bottle of black tempera paint and a couple of colored markers. You don’t know what she expects you to do with them. Your tree sucks way more than hers.

“If you can’t think of anything to draw, why not try making patterns?” Katya asks.

You guess you can do that. You start drawing red and blue circles on your piece of paper, clustering them closer and closer together. 

Apropos of nothing, you remember the time in undergrad where you and Ray couldn’t get back to campus in time to beat the blizzard. You and she slept overnight in your car, parked in a gas station. Outside, nothing but a vast, enveloping white, what you imagine death or infinity must look like. The whole world rendered down to the slope and curve of dunes and valleys.

If you think hard enough, you can feel the wind rocking the car, can imagine the sound of Ray’s teeth chattering, or the occasional slip of her hands as she does a tarot reading. Another one. Another one down, another one down, another one bites the dust, Queen playing through your radio speakers. She sits in the front passenger seat, one leg bent beneath her.

“You think we’re ever gonna get out of here?” she asks.

At this moment, you ask yourself that same question. It’s a little different, now.

You wish you could take your seven eighths of a computer engineering degree and come up with a way out of this, but you can’t. That’s your problem. You’re only you, and you’ve never been good at managing your emotions.

[whatthefuuuuuuccckkkk]

okay this is my last post I know I'm being very annoying and I hate to clog the tag but I just have to scream into the void for a while if you disagree or you're annoyed with me please just scroll past this rant thank you

- the hitman plot. god. we all hate that shit. what I realllllly hate is how long and drawn out it is. should've been one episode tops, like when dean tried it. I want to say, that obviously it's not gonna work bcz it would be stupid to kill off the character carrying the entire show, but at this point maybe they are gonna kill him off??? idfk. maybe it's a punishment for all the people (everyone) who like him. truthfully the whole "murder is our only way out of this" attitude is disappointing and seemingly out of character for all of the girls. Boomer attacked annie and they let him fuckin live. They knew he was a fuckin rapist piece of shit, and a regular piece of shit too, but couldn't kill someone. But apparently killing someone beth, at one point, felt some typa way about...smh..apparently that is A ok and they don't even explore other options or feel the least bit guilty?? even when they "mourned" boomer it was more about marion than him. But rio and his whole ass innocent child are not a thought at all??? Wild. Truly. Also....what do they think will happen?? If I were a gang leader's right hand the first person I would check upon seeing my boss get murdered would probably be the person who tried to murder him last time lmao. Do they really think they would get away with it? Even if they didnt get caught, they wouldnt be off the hook. Surely mick would just keep things going, with even less leeway. And what happens when their illegal activities bite them in the ass when Rio is gone? Who are they gonna blame everything on? Who is gonna clean up their mess? No one. And this whole "I'm not doing it, wait yes I am, wait no I'm not, wait I'm gonna do it" thing the hitman is doing is...not it. I'm assuming were gonna get an explanation about how he knew that this was a crime of passion (lol)

-beth beth beth......you know there is a theory floating around that she has serious ptsd and I actually would love to see that explored but that shit ain't happening lol. I'm tired of feeling like I'm analyzing her character. At what point is it too much. She's hard to read but I think it has crossed the line over complex and ventured into poor characterization. She's gotten chances and chances and I'm tired. And dean. God I'm tired. I feel like all season I've been watching beth do the same thing, play good wifey, risk her (and Annie's and Ruby's) life by doing stupid shit..and that's basically it. Face some fckn consequences for your actions please. Take some responsibility. I feel like the show is showing us inklings of...something...bubbling underneath the surface but it's not our job to fill in the blanks or interpret shit. I do not work for nbc. I'm not getting paid for this. What is this girl thinking trying to get rio to invest in hot tubs (bless her calling dean an idiot. fuck this show for making him suddenly a good salesman) while trying to kill him. Does she think he dies and suddenly she owns it?? Makes zero sense. Also unpopular opinion i dont like that she caused a scene with the pool ball. Like....of course he isnt listening to you....you shot him...3 times....then stole from him....and have been screwing him over repeatedly.

-dean just....no. I understand that beth has so much going on in her life right now that divorce isn't exactly on her mind and dean is the last trace she has left of a normal life so shes holding onto it for dear life.....actually no. I do not know if any of that is actually true or if I'm just interpreting wrong. Because the subtext and editing and parallels and all that would be fine and dandy but not when that's all the show is at this point. If dean cheating yet again is not gonna make beth leave him, nothing will. I want his screentime to be 30 seconds and nothing more.

-im just not invested in the boland children. Annie and ruby have both struggled real bad, but beth, the one in the deepest, has 4 children who are somehow unaffected by this?? Not to mention the whole divorce, wait never mind, oh look a gang leader hanging out with mommy again, oh look our house is empty, type stuff happening. Beth's kids should be going through it but for some reason they arent? Maybe it's because child labor laws or something lol.

- rio. At this point I'm rooting for him for than anything. But I genuinely do not know why he hasnt killed beth. She's proven herself to be more of a liability than an asset and I just cannot understand why he hasnt killed her. Unless it's the whole "feelings" route, which wouldve made him look dumb, but made sense based on what we were given. This is actually the direction I thought the season was going but now it just seems like he is a bad businessman lol. Obviously she cant die for the sake of the show, but its like they didnt even try to make it make sense. He definitely knows about the hitman btw. I dont really blame him for anything he's done with beth so far. He robbed her in retaliation. He had to cut her off when she started acting shady. 🤷‍♀️ he let's her get away with too much tbh. It's a shame that this character isnt being utilized. Its like they are banking on this mysterious aura to keep working, but we are 3 seasons in and it's a little old now. I personally think that they just don't know what to do with him now. Also can I point out how dumb he looks showing beth that he is doing business at the carwash, why would he give her more information than she needs when he is suspicious of her? I cant tell if I was happy with how unphased he looked about her outburst or if I wish he checked her.

-mick. Did his side plot with beth die? How does it seem like this show simultaneously moves through plots every episode but is also stuck in the same one for the entire season? I also think mick is not being utilized. As funny as it is for him to be a built in 3rd wheel all the time, they could do so much more. Like can you imagine if beth mouthed off or fucked up and mick checked her? The possible ways a plot like that could go...untapped potential.

-ruby. Ah...I remember when I thought her and stan's fight was dragging for too long. Miss those days. See even tho ruby and stan seem to have the same issue over and over it's not the same story. Pen cap, new job, sarah stealing, all the same fight, but with different stories. And it really seems like Ruby's always going through it but I appreciate the variety. Stan's storyline has been interesting but I dont know how much it relates to the central plot. Sarah....great. that actress is so talented and even tho shes an attitude machine (what preteen is not) i just love her scenes. Harry seems to be missing a lot. The hills are the only part I seem to enjoy anymore. Really wish the show would explore why ruby seems to be the one who keeps getting caught up with the law...I wonder what it could be....what is different about her..hm...

- annie. Backtracked so much. Wish she had a single plot that didnt revolve around men. Now shes trying to cheat on her GED. Where's the snark? Where's the wit? It seems like all she is now is a codependent insecure mess. And I'm tired of this fuckass therapist. I thought her study montage was gonna end in a "she didnt need anyone but family (:" lesson but it did not for whatever reason. I thought by bringing a therapist into the show it was gonna give us more of a look at Annie's and Beth's upbringing and relationship. Or help annie work through her issues, the boomer thing too. Or maybe lead to Beth's ptsd diagnosis. Therapy could've helped move the plot forward or help the characters grow, but it's doing the opposite of that. If its not contributing to the main plot, what is its purpose? To give annie yet another terrible love interest?

To summarize....I hate it here.