I write, this is clear enough, but why did I get into writing?
It was usually to deal with some aspect of my life I found overwhelming in my head; an event to come, a new job, traveling somewhere, sadness, exploring my own metal state, and loneliness.
I didn't do it though, by writing a best seller, but by developing characters, that are, for all intensive purposes, imaginary friends. I use them in all sorts of stories. Fan fiction, my own stories, novels and various day to day imaginings.
I never expected to carry these characters along with me, nor did I expect them to help me through my troubles. With them, I can project ideas and imagine how they would react. Bounce ideas off them. Or I can use them in novels, where I don't want to be the only one in on the adventure. Of course, because I love fantasy, they're not completely human. They each carry an aspect of me. Of something I wish to be, and of something I am. Some have more of these, some have less.
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| Clockwise from the top: Cody, Oliver, Brandon, and Jack. Not all descriptions apply. |
Jack is very tall. The tallest, and created when I was 14 and he's the same age as me. He was created as a friend who could see the future, raised by evangelical parents who tried to cure his fit like visions by sending him to an experimental psychological, resulting in a deep psychological issues, including anxiety attacks, sever mistrust and occasional paranoia. This combined with the visions result in an anxious man, wild around the eyes.
He's tall, six foot six in total with lean build, though inclined to muscle in the last four years. His hair is hay blonde and with wide, blue eyes. A squarish jaw, straight nose, and straight mouth to match, often serious, but with neat white teeth when he does smile.
His visions come in violent, fit-like spams, and he is not to be touched when they happen or he risks losing the vision.
In his teens he was much more anxious, and this seemed only cured by physical activity, including drums and skateboarding. He would avoid friendships with anyone save his sister, often bullied in school. When he was 14, he abandoned the religion of his parents, after making friends with a young group of rockers and punks. He fell in love with music at this time and discovered his skill in drums. Despite this, he still maintains his love for them, and his younger sister Elizabeth. Once moving away to school, and therefore out of their stern hold.
In university he studied to be a doctor, but turned towards psychology. During this time he took time to become more physically fit, taking a few combat courses and gun training. He is skilled with long range weapons and the human art of stealth when he wants to. While studying for his Masters (at the age of 22/23), he had a psychotic break and was forced to take a years absence from his work. During this time he found it difficult to leave home or the security of the other three friends. He has returned to school part time.
Jack is interesting, in my imaginary interactions with him, its almost always platonic, and, more often then not, I am more protective of him than he is of I, but of the four he has the greatest potential for leadership, his mental illness being the only thing holding him back. The other three, especially Cody, guard him fiercely and his skill is the most unspoken of, for risk of its discovery.
When I feel fearful and scared and suffer from psychological breaks my self, its his over arching plot path that becomes the most disrupted. Yet it is he who comforts me when I'm mentally lost and alone. If he can get through it, with everything he's been put through, then I can. I have someone who needs me to be strong because they need to keep going because of it.
My trust is most reflected in Jack. I don't trust immediately and it may seem that I do, but I don't completely. My deepest secret is his deepest secret and we share it only with those we know the most and know won't break us.
As I've grown, Jack has gotten better about his anxieties, and his problems are as much a problem as mine. He's a reminder I need to take care of my self, but in the right way. Trust when its right, and my humanity. To struggle against things I think are wrong, and to watch and listen, for it is watching and listening that Jack does best. He's the one I go to in trapped situations, because for him there is no escape. He can either panic or figure a way out and it needs to be the same way for me.
Jack is the most of me, the most deepest of my insides.
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