Generally speaking, how do you think others perceive you?

[abetterlie]

Depends on whether they get the son-of-download first, I guess. Then it's compare and contrast and all that stuff. I don't mean just to my parents (either of them). Cordy had some photos, and more recently she gave me one of those home movies, and there I'm as a baby. It's weird because everyone - not just Angel but Fred and Gunn and Wesley and Lorne - is doing the usual baby stuff, making funny faces, looking silly, that kind of thing. Like Mom and Dad in those photos that are burned now, and I don't want to know how that Cyvus Vail guy created them because they couldn't have existed until a few years ago, right? Anyway, the point is, everyone looks like they love that baby. They're constantly beaming as if it was this great present. I guess that explains how they felt when I came back from Quortoth. Which was freaked out. Whatever they thought the baby was, I wasn't it. Plus you know, with the trying to kill Angel on sight thing and all that, I guess it's safe to say the general perception was "homicidal hellspawn". (TM Lorne, for the record.) These days, it's probably homicidal-hellspawn-on-probation.

Strangers? Depends. Vampires are easiest. They just think "dinner". And then "oh, shit!" Unless they're psychic and were sired by Angel and somehow recognize me on sight despite never having met me before. Or are Dracula possessing Harry. Humans, well, like I said, it depends. I once met this family who were lost, and okay, it was night, and they were in a vamp-infested part of Los Angeles, but they were totally freaked out when I talked to them. Well, tried to to talk to them. Then some vamps attacked and dusted then, and then they were even more freaked out and got the hell away. I'm not bulky or anything, so I guess that means they thought I was creepy. Doesn't happen so much these days because among the wonders a second memory set will do to you is that you remember to paste on a smile and go through all the "how are you, I am fine" stuff when talking to strangers, but sometimes it does.

Not at college. There it's mostly "so, you're a freshman, right?" or "shouldn't you be at High School"? Because pretty much everyone thinks I'm younger than I am at first. It kind of makes me wonder whether I should wear a sign "21 or thereabouts, okay?" around the neck. Anyway. So, daylight and college perceptions are more on the "know-it-all-kid" line (or "dumb kid", depending on circumstances; "dumb" also covers perception by family and employees of Wolfram & Hart, and I guess by ghosts).

Oh, and everyone except Harry perceives me as in-need-of-a-haircut. That has remained pretty much consistent before and after the mindwipe, and goes for good guys and bad guys and humans and vampires alike. Sooner or later, they get the scissors glint in their eyes. I don't know what's up with that. It's not like they ever were that long anyway. I mean, Wesley had a 1880 daguerrotype of Angelus in his books that were lying around at the Hyperion, and man, talk about bad hairstyles.