I should really be in bed right now ...

... since I have to get up early to catch the bus tomorrow. But since I can't sleep, I thought I'd post a blog.

No idea why, but games don't seem particularly appealing right now. What's wrong with me?

Hmm, what should I talk about. How about a personal recollection?

When I was younger, my Mum made a conscious effort to keep me away from Batman. I completely understand and agree with her on that one. Exposure to the ideas and themes explored within its story-lines and characters wouldn't have been good for me at the time.

As it is, a couple of years ago, I found out that Mark Hamill played the Joker in Batman: The Animated Series. I've always been a fan of the original Star Wars films, so I decided to look it up. I could see why Mum didn't want me getting into Batman, but since I had matured a lot since childhood, and my mental health had been stable for a while, I asked her if I could watch it. After my parents had a discussion, the answer was yes - but only if I watched it with Dad. Turns out he's quite the Bat-fan.

So yeah, I love the series. Mr Freeze is one of my favourite characters, and I find the character of the Joker fascinating. I feel sorry for Harley Quinn. Love sometimes strikes in the oddest of circumstances.

I've watched most of the Batman films now. I didn't particularly like Arnie's portrayal of Mr Freeze, but I think that was probably down to the writers - the script wasn't really in anybody's favour that time round. It's hard for me to pick a favourite Joker. Heath Ledger seemed the most realistic, to my mind, but perhaps I'm just biased. *winks* Ugh, I must be tired. I never wink. My favourite laugh has to be Mark Hamill's. I think my least favourite Joker is Jack Nicholson. I think the two things that push him down on the list are the backstory and the "Just look at Batman's girlfriend! *jaw drops* *eyes pop* *tongue droops*" bits. And the fact that he dies. (I don't know, I guess I just don't like death scenes.) His acting was amazing though, and I felt myself wanting to dance with him at the end.

It's a shame that neither Mr Freeze or the Joker are going to be in the next film. The Riddler would have been my next choice, but he's not going to be in it either. Oh well, at least we got Joker in TDK.

Oh, and you know what's a complete coincidence but funny nonetheless? I was watching The Dark Knight yesterday (my Dad made me because he heard the new one was going to be out soon - I told him it wasn't till 2012 but he made me watch it anyway, and we nearly missed Doctor Who), and I noticed the blue hexagons on his shirt! What a hoot! (I never use that word either, I must be getting tired.)

Anyway, I should probably go to bed now. Night all!

(Oh, and in case of future changes to this blog - the hexagons are a reference to my current background.)

My "friends"

Okay, so I've already mentioned Liam. I thought I might say a bit about more of the imaginary friends my mind has collected over the years.

Since you already know a bit about him, I think it would be best to start with Liam. As you (should) already know, I met Liam when he was just a baby badger, abandoned at the edge of the playground. When I took him home I asked my parents if I could keep him. My Mum flat out said no, but I managed to change her mind with the combined power of nagging and blackmail. Yeah. Not my finest moment, but at least I gained a friend. Such a cute friend too! He spends most of his time in the garden nowadays, eating and ... other things. He's made a bit of a mess of the trees, but it doesn't bother Mum and Dad, since they can't see it, and it doesn't harm the trees either. By some miracle, my parents have managed to dodge his latrine. The close calls are quite amusing to watch, though.

I take him inside at night. He's got a pile of blankets in the airing cupboard that he sleeps on. Sometimes if I forget to change them he drags them out himself and tries to put them in the basket. But I'm losing my train of thought, or speech, or text, or whatever. I'll introduce the rest of my "friends" in a minute.

I'd just like to point this out first: over the years, my hallucinations have changed quite a lot. Every now and then one of them will disappear, or a new one might arrive. (This post will describe the personalities that are currently resting in my brain, and are subject to change as time passes.)

One of my longest-lasting friends is a boy named Pete. Strangely enough, Pete has aged mentally, but not physically. He's had the body of a six-year old since I met him, but as time's past he's matured at the same rate I have. Although he's one of my oldest friends, we have several differences. For one, he likes pop music (and hates that I don't let him keep up with the charts), whereas I am rather more - shall we say unorthodox? - in my own tastes. For another, he hates reading (I don't even know if he bothered to learn). But we have a shared history, and he isn't picky about what films he watches, so he's a good companion.

Somebody who doesn't make such a good companion is (I'm almost embarrassed to admit this) Brainy Smurf. Luckily he doesn't hang about a lot. Usually he just pops up if I'm not feeling particularly happy about something, most often with a snarky tone and a self-important statement. He's been around for about three years now, ever since I caught an episode of The Smurfs on the telly. I didn't regret watching the episode (it was a good episode), but then Brainy started showing up. At least I'm not the only one who finds him irritating, though. Whenever he says anything he is greeted with a chorus of "Shut up, Brainiac!" from whoever's around at the time.

Another one who drops in occasionally is Susan. Susan is almost like an alter-ego of mine. She lives within my head, and sometimes decides to step into the world. Most of the time it's only her voice though. She's the same age as me, and she shares most of my interests. Where we differ is our perceptions of the world. Susan is generally pessimistic about society, and people in general. If she were ever to gain proper form then she would probably end up being a suicide bomber or something - just so she could take people with her. Surprisingly though, she often points out the beauty of the natural world to me. I remember a time we were walking through a forest and she rushed over to look at ants crawling over a log. I never would have noticed them if it weren't for her.

- I've just realised that this post is very long, so I'll try and wrap it up.

Susan started out as just a pessimistic voice in my head, possibly resulting from my experience of people (and dragging me into depression), but since then she has developed a personality and a face. I think that, possibly, she grows more substantial as my outlook brightens, reflecting our separation.

There are a few others, but these are the main ones. And since I've started college I've become busier (this took me almost week to write). I find it funny that, while I've been writing this post, I've begun the process of making some real friends. More about that later, though.

Ciao!

As promised ...

In my last blog entry I mentioned a strange thing that happened after I left school for the second time. I didn't think much of it at the time, what with my mind being so unreliable and such, but now I feel it was too much of a coincidence for me to let it go unnoticed. I just hope I don't get into trouble by sharing this.

I used to take mid-morning walks around town on weekdays. I was walking my usual route, skirting the school so as to avoid any unwanted attention. This route took me down to the riverside, which is surrounded by trees. I'm not sure why they built a school so close to a river. It just seems so risky. And that's not even mentioning the erosion of the river valley and the regular floods every few decades.

Anyway, I'm getting off-subject. I was walking next to the river when I spotted a figure further along the path, in amongst the tree trunks. I thought this might be another new friend that my mind had created, for it definitely wasn't human. Although dressed in what looked like a business suit, this figure was unnaturally tall and thin. I called out to the figure and it turned round. Although it didn't have any facial features, it seemed surprised. I started to jog towards the figure, and it quickly turned and started walking away from me. I would have caught up with it, but when it moved behind one of the tree trunks it seemed to disappear completely.

This was a few days before one of my former classmates went missing.

It's a shame, she was a nice girl. She had pretty blue eyes, and a freckle on her ear. They never did find out what happened to her.

A lot of you will know where I'm going with this. If you don't then it's probably for the best that you discontinue reading. Just stop reading and move on to the next post (which I haven't written yet, but will probably write in the future).

At the time, my parents asked me if I'd seen anything suspicious. I'd learned how to tell the difference between hallucinations and reality by then, so I told them I hadn't seen anything. Nobody would have taken it seriously if I'd told them; even myself.

Recently though, I've been reading about encounters with an entity known as the "Operator" or the "Slender Man". The figure I saw that day definitely fits the physical description, and it seems to fit the M.O. of this Slender fellow. Apparently he doesn't like crazy people. Maybe that's why he didn't want to talk to me.

I haven't seen him since that day, and I don't think any other children have gone missing. If it was him, I hope she wasn't in too much pain. I've heard stories of him stalking people for months, making them more and more paranoid.

Anyway, after I heard about the Slender fellow online, I tried to find out more about him. This lead me to some video series and many many blogs. Eventually I decided that, despite my hatred of user accounts, I would have to make one in order to keep up with all of them.

I'm not quite sure why I'm telling you all of this. I suppose with me starting college soon I should start getting used to talking about myself. Forgive me if I seem a little on-edge at times. This is still pretty new to me.

Introduction - Take Two

I made this blog so I could have a way of keeping track of (and sometimes commenting on) the blogs I'm following. But almost as soon as I had started, the internet broke. My Dad called the company, and they said to bring it into the shop and they'd try to fix it. Meanwhile, no internet access. Great. Finally got it back a few days ago.

But what a time to get my connection back! The riots down south, spreading northwards. My parents were worried. We don't live in the city, but there are people living in this town who might have tried to take advantage of the situation. It seems to be dying down now, thank goodness. So much damage has been caused! It's not going to do the economy any good.
-----------


I realise my first introduction was a little brief. I'm sorry about that, I just don't like revealing much of myself online. If you don't mind, I think I'll take this time to elaborate a little.

I think I must have always been crazy. I hear a lot of kids have imaginary friends, but I thought mine were real. I mean, I could see them, hear them, touch them, but nobody else could. I found that confusing, but some of my imaginary friends couldn't see the other children, and I couldn't see their imaginary friends, so I thought it was normal. It was when I started school that my parents picked up that something was wrong. My Mum is a psychiatrist, and apparently she had suspected I had problems, but wasn't certain until the teacher phoned her that day. One result of that was I was homeschooled until I was around ten. By that time I had learned how to deal with my problems. The other kids, however, had not.

The bullying didn't start immediately. There were a few kids who were nice to me, I could almost call them friends, and the teachers were almost always very pleased with my work. But a few months in, people had started noticing the weirdness. Then I met Liam, my pet badger, in the playground. He was so small, and I thought he must have been abandoned by his parents or something. I called my friends over to show them this baby badger, and they said they couldn't see him. That was when I realised he was a hallucination. I left him under a bush and took him home with me that night. The bullying started the next day. Two weeks later, my parents had taken me out of school and my Dad was once again teaching me.

You know, a curious thing happened about a year after I stopped school again. I'll maybe tell you in a different post.

So, nowadays. When I should have been starting secondary school, my parents asked me what subjects I wanted to take and managed to arrange for some tutors to come and teach me what they themselves couldn't. I sat my exams at a nearby college. I'll be going there next year for some more advanced courses. I'm not going back to school with those people.

I have a part time job stacking shelves in a shop. Sometimes people from my old class come in. They haven't recognised me yet, but I try to hide my badge from them, just in case. My workmates are nice enough. They give me hope that I will find friends at college. I keep quiet most of the time, and I haven't gotten to know them yet, but they seem like nice people.

-------

I should probably do a bit about my personality and interests now. I like to draw sometimes, I like watching fantasy/sci-fi, reading is fun too. A lot of my free time is spent on the computer, either playing Flash games or reading blogs. The blogs are a bit of a new thing. I might explain that in another post as well, since it kind of ties in with the weird thing that happened.

I also like going out once in a while, climbing trees or hillwalking. Not so much now. My Mum seems to have taken a dislike to the woodlands. Maybe it's because of that crazy dog that turned on its owners. The newspaper said that the investigators found body parts scattered around the path, and even in some of the trees. I think it shocked her a little. I've tried to tell her that it was completely random, that the chances of something like that happening are miniscule, but she still refuses to go near the woods, and made us promise not to either.

She's been a little stressed lately. One night she got back from work looking absolutely exhausted. My Dad asked her what was wrong and she mumbled something about pension cuts and switched on the telly. He tried to ask her again later, and she yelled that she didn't want to talk about it. Poor guy. He looked a little shaken afterwards.

Well, I think that's it. Unless you want me to introduce my hallucinations. But this post is quite long already. Maybe I'll do that some other time. And I'd have to ask their permission first. (I don't think Liam will mind. After all, he is a badger.)

Ciao!