Into the 2D Realm

i wonder what i would do without fiction? i don't know what i would ever bear to do if it wasn't real! ever since i was a kid i was hooked on media, from books to enticing movies. akin to how now, i just spend time late on my phone...I would stay up late reading books, finishing 600+ pages in a single day, so I could consume the next book. I'll never forget the first moment I couldn't hear someone speaking to me. Despite my weak stomach, accursed to throw up often, I was reading my favorite book on the bus. A friend had apparently called out to me...Like I would've known...multiple times. She had to touch me to grab my attention, and I'll never ever ever ever forget the shock I felt when she'd said she'd called me multiple times. I was in a different world, and she just affirmed it! In that world, there was no one else, not my weak stomach, not my nausea, not loud busmates. It was just me, the book, and the characters! And that makes my heart race to this day.

Now Real Life Has No Appeal

Unfortunately, as I grew older, I didn't have the fortune of being interested in what was popular. Even if my friends liked something else at the time, I'd try to get into it and ultimately find myself bored, going back to what I truly loved. I have moved around a lot, so I'd also go to new schools. What do you think would happen when a kid who doesn't know how to socialize past their interests got sent into a new middle school? I didn't even know abbreviations for text and the like, and didn't know or care for most of what my classmates liked at the time. It was just what I liked, even if no one else did! when I found someone who liked what I did, I'd talk to them as much as possible. If I was lucky enough, they'd stay. I was eventually able to befriend people, but I couldn't bring myself to care about them past the present unless they loved what I did. Is this okay? Probably not, but oh well.

CW: Abuse Fiction is not only about the world! It's about the characters, and their stories! What do you think would comfort me the most after getting beaten by my dad? It'd be a Vocaloid song about killing everyone and myself. It'd be a show that had characters so lovely I could forget about the world. For example, I was obsessed with Todoroki and Dabi before, not even in a romantic way. Seeing their experiences made me feel better about not being alone. It really was just me and my siblings, it felt like! Usually, after my dad was being abusive, we'd cheer ourselves up by talking about headcanons about our favorite characters! Even if it was in intervals with talking about debating murdering him, it was so fun! It was so distracting! It was like the world wasn't real. Only the cute characters on the screen were! Even if my parents berated and insulted what I liked every chance they could get, it didn't matter because then I just wouldn't talk to them! At all!
For anyone worried: this situation has gotten better due to Circumstances. Nothing is perfect, but things are better. At least a little bit.

I especially love HEADPHONES!! HEADPHONES! well, specifically earphones, because headphones are genuinely sooooo uncomfortable and agonizing to wear. YOU WERE ACTUALLY THERE, IN THE SONG!!! You could hear EVERYTHING! You could hear if someone was further away, or closer! this aided my fantasies so much, and I would daydream about long car rides just because it'd be such a long time to be lost in my thoughts. But you can't block everything out with sound, so when I'd be stuck in church, I would space out so hard, thinking about characters and worlds I loved, that before I knew it, it'd be over! Thank you, fiction, for giving me so much to think about. What would I do without you?

This is just, like, the flowery stuff though. I've resented fiction before because...”Why aren't you real? But if you were real, I would hate it!” It has been a cycle that's looped in my head! Can you believe, at one point, even though I managed to make friends and a social life, I found a google doc about me rambling about my animosity toward reality. Why weren't my favorite characters real? I couldn't touch them. I can talk to them though! Everybody say thank you, OC x Canon! But I couldn't touch them. They were trapped in the 2D world! And there was no way to take them out! I wanted to save them, and therefore myself!

A Crime of Passion, In Which I Killed Myself.

Soooo I turned to lucid dreaming. Every time I got close I would wake up too fast due to extreme excitement. I gave up and tried again multiple times. There was a time when I was so obsessed with this one character (in fact i have a lengthy shrine for her at the moment, which I'd like to share but I'm ultimately to shy!!) that i had more dreams than I'd ever had with a character. I'd record them all; I'd think about him every day. I stayed up so many nights to complete the shrine. My sleep schedule was nonexistent but I'm glad I was able to basically finish talking about someone I loved. I even arranged part of her song, yay!! It sounded so good. It was really the accumulation of LOVE!

Did you see some concerning stuff in here? Because, yeah. I lose sleep thinking about characters. I would skip meals thinking about fictional characters. I would lose time, even! Of course, this would never obstruct my academic life too much. But my social life? My mental health? My physical health? Could be better! I still wouldn't call my relationship with fiction a love-hate one, though. More like a love-longing one? Even if that longing makes me bitter at times.

A tangent, but I also enjoy feeling sad. When your favorite character dies and every song reminds you of them >>>>>>> I also enjoy the feeling of “if only this didn't happen, then...” probably because I think that about life a lot! So being able to think like that about 2D characters, helps me feel better, i think.

It gets even more complicated! Though undiagnosed, or at least I haven't been given an official statement or whatever — idk how this stuff works — I at least know I have depression and anxiety. I think I might have more but that's for the future me to find out, I guess. Either way, when I got medicated for it, since the social aspects of school were just That hard for me, I would feel like crying every time I had to take my pills. I was thinking, I'm gonna take this to become more Normal! And then I'd feel so bad about why I have to do anything to become normal.
Going back to fiction, when i found out that a lot of people weren't as obsessed with fictional characters as me, I would feel insecure. I would feel ashamed. Normal people didn't have an easier time remembering fictional characters' birthdays than real life people, right? People would fall in love with Real people, not fictional characters. I was sure that normal people didn't have 2D characters rotating in their head 24/7. It was only recently, due to finding out about a bunch of people online who did the same stuff as me, that i was like...hold On. If i'm this upset about what i'm doing, then wouldn't that mean i would be upset about my very own friends? They were the same as me! And I loved seeing them talk about what they loved! Seriously, I will definitely read your analyses and interpretations in full! It's lovely to be able to put thoughts like that coherently, I think!! I'll admit I don't think it's “normal”, but the problem was that I viewed being abnormal as a bad thing, deep down. I'd do nothing to change what made me abnormal, because how else would I live, but I would be secretly jealous of all the kids who, you know. Go to prom or something. But there's nothing wrong with being abnormal. Or at least that's what I like to tell myself! I hope this makes sense...

I'll be the first to admit that my feelings aren't all pretty. In fact, as I'm writing this, just recently I was trying not to Cry out of anger because of someone who not only hated one of my faves, but refused to acknowledge their growth or that other characters cared about them. At all. Of course I had to Calm myself the fuck down, even if it took a while. I hate how these feelings come with such intense love, but what can I do? In the end, the love outweighs the hatred, like my therapist said...or something.

All's Well That Ends Well

Hmm! In conclusion, I care to an alarming extent about fiction! Fiction has saved me time and time again, but too much of a good thing can be bad for you...or something. I'm working on eating more, and the like. Fun fact, you know what helps me? Imagining one of my faves telling me to go do it! It's been even better ever since I found a certain character who does not eat, but he is also working on that, with other characters' help! HEHRHEHE I just get SO happy! It makes me happy! fiction makes me HAPPY!!! Thank you for existing! I hope that one day I'm less ashamed of this!