What's Left

What's left of this arc? Tad still has some work to do. He's undoing an entire life, not just a few weeks of brainwashing. He's ultra focused on breaking the handler connection right now, but there are directives all the way down. He has to examine every part of him to figure out what occurred in him naturally and what was put there by someone else.

Directive changes:
No commands to hurt handler may be followed. Period. Not even if she asks. This directive is to be re-enforced every day until it is no longer a concern or until deprogramming is otherwise complete.

He can't tell Tessa that he's actively working to protect her still. In case it doesn't work. He doesn't want her thinking she's safe around him if he can't guarantee that. 

At this point, Sleep Tad is the only one coming out. When he speaks with a drawl, it's because he means to OR because it's very easy to do since he has been doing it his whole life. Truthfully? This is just Tad. It's not an id. It's not nature. It's nothing like that. Sleep Tad is Tad. Period. Awake Tad is Tad with a mask on...to borrow from Mr. Smiley. This willingness to be himself is a sign that he's being fixed. Eventually, everything will merge. He'll gain some memories that have been taken from him. He'll probably keep the drawl, if only because I like to differentiate how I actually speak from a messed up character I play on a video game roleplaying server.

Tad's moods are calming down rather than continuing to change at breakneck speeds. Tad still thinks of them as erratic. He's not used to being allowed to have moods. It's a lot for him. Eventually, he'll get used to it and gain control of it.

Tad is still hallucinating. He probably always will. It's a part of him now. This is damage dealt by breaking programming.

Drugs will no longer have an affect on Tad's brain. That means he won't sleep with the help of a drug. He won't mellow out. He won't hallucinate as an affect of a drug. He won't trick his brain into thinking he's not in pain (it's fine. See the next one. Totally fine.). If a drug is meant to change his brain or perception in any way, it won't work. Drugs that do other things will still work. This is technically damage. He can still gain a dependency on a drug. He can still be poisoned or overdosed. There is something wrong with his receptors now.

Including his pain receptors. He can tell when he should be in pain, but he will no longer feel it. This is dangerous. He's going to have to be more cognizant of his injuries. 

Tad's motor function is damaged, though not to the extent that his father's was. He has been distracted by his trauma. And I have been distracted by my hot keys and keep fricking left clicking for some reason lately. Breaking directives is also stressful. For both of us. 

Tad cannot remember what Tessa Lamb looks like at the moment. By assigning self-directives, he has broken the directive to take directives only from his handler. This resulted in the memory of what Tessa looks like being scrubbed from his brain. It will continue to be scrubbed. He will not recognize her by sight. Only by the sound of her voice. This damage has effectively broken two other directives: Tad will no longer be aware of Tessa when she's near (unless she speaks to him). She is also no longer assigned as his handler. Which is something Tad will not realize unless she tries to give him a directive. 

He has some work to do still. But as of waking up this morning, Tad has free will in the sense that nobody can give him directives but himself. He just needs to scrub the rest of the damage his grandma did clean. Which is likely to take a year or more. 

I feel kind of bad for his dad.

Y'all. Remember how early on I got three Nat 1's in one night? Tonight, got four Nat 20's and a 3 when rolling about directive breaks. The 3 was for whether or not he was going to realize he no longer has a handler since he no longer writes things down. The dice really want this to be over, but they really want to keep him thinking he's still tethered to Tessa. Go figure.