Psychology

Hello! I'm chillin, in my psychology class, not really paying attention. It is exactly what we talked about in our recitation yesterday. So I decided to blog about my life instead. I have to write a poem before tomorrow. Or, well, sometime tomorrow. Generally. For my poetry class. I don't like poetry. But it's chill.

I've been dancing a lot lately, and making soooo many friends. It's weird, all this social interaction. In the Japanese Cultural Association, we are doing a culture show. In that culture show, we are doing dances. It's super fun. I'm currently in all three of the ones that were advertised on Facebook. It's exciting. And I'm making friends with lots of people. Similarly, I am making friends with a lot of people on the first floor of my dorm, where one of my friends lives. There's been so much spontaneous social activity lately. I think I have talked to more people, more often, within the last week and a half than I have in the past three years. Not exaggerating.

I have gas. I know, TMI. But it is an issue. And I kind of feel like I am going to throw up. But, you know, I never know how accurate that is. And I like cats. And, oh look, this is really fancy. From one of my new friend's birthday party.

It's awesome. I know. Friends are a great thing to have. And I like cats. And if I could have any wild animal for a pet, it would be a panda. And I have been convinced to become active on tumblr and twitter again. Silly new friends, addicting me to the internet. What do I even do?

We're talking about sleep in psychology. I don't really care about it. At all. But I'll pay attention when he starts talking about dreams. And hypnosis. Because I want to learn about hypnosis. It sounds fun. Seriously. I don't think I have anything else to say. Which is sad. What am I supposed to distract myself with now? I don't even know. I guess I'll go stare at Facebook. And try not to fall asleep.

Black and White

Black and White


    My fingers slip along the keys
of the piano in front of me. Smooth;
they are smooth, and yet
the perspiration on my hands
creates a trail of sticky, sweet sweat
on each and every key my fingers trace.
People are looking at me -
people I know and people I don’t.
         Anxiety;
the black pupils
and whites of their eyes
distract me with their contrast -
the same as that of the keys in front of me.
    No.
         Focus;
I have to focus.
As my fingers slide
from black to white,
I can feel the strings under the ebony surface
get plucked, one by one.
I have to ignore the eyes,
their colors like a white angel
against a black one on my shoulders,
painting the entire world around me
         in black and white,
         right and wrong,
         up and down.
Every breath I take
is like a shudder from my core, and
I feel my body reverberate
with the same ‘pluck’
that causes each string of the piano to create music.
But a single pluck alone isn’t enough
to make the song. No,
the song comes from the mix
of black and white.
The gleaming eyes around me blur
as I am finally pulled
into the melody my fingers are conducting,
and the keys do the same -
I can no longer feel
the heat of the bright, yellow light on my back.
Black and white becomes grey -
         grey like the sky after it rains,
         grey like my mother’s kind eyes,
         grey like those old movies
before technology could handle the world in full color.
And the more grey the keys become,
the more clearly my music resonates
    within me.

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Look! I posted something! Somehow, I actually like this poem. Probably because I wrote it as a paragraph and then split it up. So, while I was writing it, it was technically prose. But really. It is kind of cool. What is this? Me liking poetry I wrote? Nonsense. The world must be coming to an end. But anyway, I've been very enveloped in Yu Yu Hakusho fan fiction. You should go to my fan fiction profile and read it. I update it every Saturday.

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Spirited Away

Miyazaki. His movies are all simply amazing. They are all so creative, and each and every one of them really makes you think. He so successfully pulls you into the world he has created, and I know in my case it can be hard to detach myself from it afterwards.

After some soul-searching, my favorite of his movies is Spirited Away. I have always identified with Chihiro, and I would like nothing more than to slip into the spirit world to have an adventure, as traumatizing as it may be. From all of the books I have read, the video games I have played, and the tv shows and movies I have watched, I would like nothing more than to go on a massive adventure for some reason or another, meet the love of my life, and have something interesting happen to me.

This is going to be less like my Final Fantasy IX post about me convincing you that my idea of what my favorite is is a legitimate opinion, and more of a post with me gushing about how much I love it. 

First I would like to give a recommendation to any who care for it, in the form of beautiful (though there are a few very, very small grammatical errors) fan fiction. It is a series by the fanfiction.net author Velf, and it has three parts.

Courage of the Spirit

Enchantment of the Heart

Resilience of the Soul

I have spent the past few days being completely immersed in these stories, and even though the ending did not give me quite as much closure as I wanted, I am very satisfied by the plot and the world she created. It is beautiful, and I recommend it to any Spirited Away fan who wants to know more than just the movie, even if this story is not canonical. 

I think that is all I have to say. Not totally sure, but I feel like I have gushed enough. Really though. I wish I could be that creative. Sometimes I feel like my attempts are just pathetic and can never live up to the expectations I have for them, but I still have hope.

Because they are too adorable.

Final Fantasy IX

I'm sorry I haven't posted anything particularly productive lately. I have been distracted by Aidan Turner and, without a class prompting me to do so, I don't get many ideas for random works. I am sure the next five months will be filled with all sorts of poetry I think is awful due to my Poetry class I am required to take. Why force me to do poetry? It isn't fair. I'm so bad at it. I can't take it seriously.

And I have been watching too much British television. 

I even think with a British accent now. It's sort of strange. Yeah.

Anyway, to the point of this post. Final Fantasy IX. I really love that game. After much soul searching over the years, I can solidly say that it is my favorite Final Fantasy game, and it makes me sad that some people have never even heard of it. Final Fantasy VII does, however, come in a close second. And as overrated as people think that game is, I do love it regardless of how many people think positively or negatively about it. But that is a tale for another time. This post is about my favorite, Final Fantasy IX.

It is a funny game. It does still have plenty of seriousness to the plot, but I so feel like it has the most comedic talent out of any of the Final Fantasy games I have played, which is most of them. And every single character is so well-made. Zidane will forever be my favorite leading male, though I am pretty excited for Nocits in Versus XIII, but that is beside the point. His character is so well-made and developed throughout the plot, and my sister and I both fell in love with him. Her probably less than me, since I am the one with the "falling in love with fictional characters" issue. I can say the same for Dagger, Vivi, Steiner, Eiko, and every single one of the characters in that game. 

Next part of why I love it is Kuja. I understand that the majority of Final Fantasy fans will say that Sephiroth is the best villain ever. I can see that point of view. I am addicted to Sephiroth's story, and I fell in love with him as much as I fell in love with Zidane. More hard-core Final Fantasy fans who have been playing all of the games obsessively will try to tell me that Kefka is the best villain. I am currently in the process of playing Final Fantasy VI with my sister, so I can't jusdge the situation quite yet, but he does seem like a good villain. Naive fans who only started playing with the PlayStation 2 might try to tell me Seymour is the best villain. Those people... I don't even want to explain how wrong I find that. But I disagree. I believe that Kuja is the best villain.

I do have reasons. Kuja is not the most powerful. No, he would probably lose in a fight against Sephiroth. Again, not sure about Kefka. I should play Dissidia and find out. He is not the most mentally screwed up. He is not, by any account, the most evil. So if that is how you measure the best villain, then I do suppose he is not the winner. However, his character is astounding. He was created for a single purpose, and he was defective. So his creator made a newer version, a better version, that effectively was his brother. He was cast aside, and his creator knew he would be useless and planned to replace him with the newer model. I can understand why he got upset and tried to get rid of Zidane. Then he finds out that he is going to die. In a childlike fit of jealousy, he wants to destroy the world so that everything else will go down with him.

Kuja is not evil. He was mistreated, and that led him to make some stupid decisions. He never got to grow up, and he retained a childlike sense about him that led him to want to destroy everything. He wasn't proud of what he was, hence the hiding of his tail, and he was most certainly jealous of Zidane. But after all of the character development he went through, in the end he does something right. He saved Zidane's party and assisted them in escaping in the end of the game. Zidane saw that change in him, and he stayed behind to protect him. I like to believe that Kuja didn't die, but that is left up in the air. And that is why I feel like he is the best villain. His character is astoundingly well-done, and his motivations are original and well-founded by the writers.

My next point is the theme. As many people know, IX and X were developed at the same time. As such, IX did not receive much advertisement, but that isn't my point. The theme of Final Fantasy X is about dreams and hope. I love its message. It is one of the best games I have ever played. I haven't been involved with Final Fantasy VII for as long, but I know its theme could very well have something to do with the idea that we are destroying the planet. Also very important, and very close to my heart. Each game has something like that, but the one that hits me the most is Final Fantasy IX's. It is about life.

Every single one of the characters in IX is faced with their mortality. There are numerous monologues about life and how you need to live it, no matter what you are or what you've done. From Zidane, to Kuja, to especially Vivi, that theme is illustrated in every single character's story. Though it isn't explicitly  mentioned, most people assume the farewell monologue in the end is Vivi before he died. I also see that as being true, though it took me a while to figure that out. I feel like IX has the strongest message that can really be applied to any person, in any stage of life. We have to live with the time that we have, and not simply exist. That game genuinely changed my life.

The characters and plot, while having all of their ties to the bits of Final Fantasy that are in each game, are so unique. My sister and I always play Final Fantasy games together, and in the old ones we say the lines since they aren't dubbed. Honestly, it is probably where my acting skills came from. And Final Fantasy IX is the first game we did that for. It has become a habit. Another part of my attraction to IX is the music. For some reason, people seem to really like the music of VIII. I don't particularly like that music, and I don't particularly like that game. There are things about it that deter me from being interested, like the double plot. IX has my favorite music, and every time I hear it all I want to do is play it again. It never gets old to me, and I really just wish that more people would give it a chance and be able to learn form it, as well as laugh and enjoy it, in the same way my sister and I did.

Old, Alone, Done For

The title is a quote from the Peter Pan that has that adorable little boy in it. The one with the thimble. I love that movie. And I am feeling particularly like dear old Captain Hook today.

Not that I want to kill any adorable children, just that I feel lonely. Mainly, I miss Virginia Tech. I miss my room, my roommate, my friends, my classes, the campus, the food, everything. I just want to go back now. 

I also need some inspiration. Not even inspiration, really. I know exactly what I want to write. I just don't seem to have the motivation to open up a Word document and actually write it. Maybe I need to get really sick again so I can be on drugs all the time. Apparently that worked before, because I was on a roll. I can't say the same for the state of my writing right now.

I am, however, quite in love with Aidan Turner.

I mean, he is an amazing actor. And just look at him. Really, I can't even begin to resist. He is almost equal to Johnny Depp on my list of favorite actors. And I don't even like that many actors, so me knowing his name is a big enough deal already. So I have been watching Being Human and, I must say, Mitchell and Kili are very different characters.

Also, Aidan Turner is clearly all for the supernatural people. First he is a vampire, then he gets reincarnated into a dwarf, then reincarnated again into a werewolf. Perhaps he will be a fairy next. That would be exciting.

But anyway, I am enjoying Being Human. Unfortunately, my internet is extremely slow, and iTunes is taking much too long to download it, so I am currently stuck on the third episode of the second season, waiting for the next to finish downloading. And then I will probably stay up all night watching it until I get to one that hasn't finished downloading. And then I will think to myself.

"Christina," I will say, "why did you not take the slight inspiration that entered your being and spend this time writing instead of fawning over Kili the dwarf's past life?"

"Intelligent part of me, dearest," I will reply, "as much as I love writing, the slight obsession I have for this actor is currently all-consuming, therefore I must watch everything I can with him in it in order to alleviate  this from my system... or at least minimize its ability to distract me."

Whether or not the more logical side of me takes that for a good enough answer is beyond my predictions. Because I really should be writing. I know the scene I want to write right now and everything. The second arc of my story is so much fun.

I felt compelled to share. I like that picture. It is one of the backgrounds on my cell phone.

Yes, I am aware that my infatuations with fictional characters are disturbing and unhealthy. But there is nothing I can do about it. Plus, I am not harming anyone, and it gives me inspiration to write, unlike when I am infatuated with normal, real people. THOSE infatuations make me LOSE all inspiration. I would know. I just had one.

It sucked.

But man, the guy is attractive. Oh well. Nothing is going to happen. And if it does, knowing my luck, I will be madly in love with someone I haven't even met yet and be like "well, damn, maybe you should have done something back when I was, I don't know, super duper interested in you." 

Exactly.

Alright. This codfish is going to go watch more Being Human. Enjoy your day. (Except no one reads this blog. So it is really just myself I am telling this to. And maybe some very curious fans if I one day am a bestselling author. That would be funny. If that happened: Hello out there! This is me when I was nineteen and did not have a driver's license! Nice to meet you! What am I like now? I am very curious to know.)

I feel like I just looked into the future. Cool. I like time travel. Even if it is only in my mind.

<3

PlayStation 3

I am bored, and apparently I am going to be posting thirty thousand times today. As you know if you read my previous posts, I got a PlayStation 3 for Christmas. I have wanted one for a very long time, and to have one now is like a dream come true.

Unfortunately, it is telling me it needs to update. And The update is taking forever. It is on 18% and I feel like I started, like, thirty minutes ago.

I might be exaggerating, but I wasn't looking at a clock.

I have some games. Final Fantasy XIII-2, which I am excited about. A Mortal Kombat collection. Uncharted 1 and 2, and some other game that came with the system that is under Uncharted, so I can't see the title. 

Oh look, now it is at 19%.

Hopefully, it will finish updating one day. And when that day comes, I will play Mortal Kombat and kill all of the things. Meanwhile, I will type this blog post, longing for the burst of energy I need to be able to write more of my story.

Speaking of my story, I have a whole team assembled to help me. I have myself writing, obviously, and my lovely roommate Grace helping me whenever I am stuck or have a plot hole. I have my friend form high school, Shayna, drawing all of my people that are important, which I absolutely love her for doing. I've got a college friend, Joe, that was going to major in Architecture but ended up in Construction drawing all of my cities, towns, and important buildings. I have another college friend, Michael, drawing me a map. 

Aren't my friends great? I think so.

22%! Progress is good!

So, the Hokies won our bowl game. I didn't watch, since I was distracted with making this spiffy blog, but I heard it was really bad until the fourth quarter, in which we spontaneously played well. So good for us. I'm glad we could pull ourselves together and win.

I miss my bed at college. It's bigger than mine at home, and somehow more comfortable. And my comforter there. It is so cuddly. And my giant beanbag! I have a giant beanbag. Look!

Isn't it lovely? That is Michael, my cartographer, lying on it. And my old Guitar Hero guitars. I do miss my room quite a lot. 

You want to know what is delicious? Salsa con Queso flavored Cheetos. They are so good. I could eat an entire bag in a day. In fact, I believe I have before.

We are now at 27%.

I might give up for a while and go play World of Warcraft. Because that is always fun. And I could play my dwarf with a cat named Kili. I have a distinct urge to see The Hobbit again, but I know that won't happen. It needs to be on DVD so I can have it. Like, ASAP.

Christmas Insomnia Part 2

In response to the coincidentally quite relevant memoir I had to  write for Creative Writing, I have decided to write another one, here, for all of your reading enjoyment, about this recent Christmas Eve. It will probably be longer, and I should warn you that, if you are planning on seeing The Hobbit movies but have not read the actual book, it would be advised that you do not read this post. Because there are spoilers. Big ones. Like, the size of the spiders in Australia.

Yes. That big. And I'm sure the spoilers have little baby spoilers hidden beside them too... if those spiders can be called little.

I am going to continue to spew in an effort to have the spoilers be far enough down the page for people who care to be able to leave. I need to at least give you a fair opportunity to not be spoiled, as large as I know the temptation is. So I am going to take this space to talk about none other than my favorite non-domestic animal, Pandas.

I am very fond of pandas. I am currently in possession of a stuffed panda I bought from the national zoo, an aromatherapy panda that I can microwave (even though it feels like animal cruelty, I just have to remind myself that it is NOT a real panda), a panda pillow pet, and a panda wearing a maroon t-shirt that says "I <3 Virginia Tech." Because pandas are simply too cool.

I have been playing World of Warcraft a lot, which I haven't done in a while, and I smile every time I see a panda. I can be a panda, too, and that is just... too great.

Let's see. What else can I spew about? My sisters and I made a gingerbread house on Christmas Eve. Look, I'm being relevant. 

I know you want to know why it looks so spectacular. And, you know what? Just because you have taken the time to read my silly post, I will tell you our secret. It is the logs. See the snow-covered logs in the bottom right? They are what make the house amazing. And they are simply three broken pieces of a white-chocolate covered pretzel.

Have I covered enough space yet? I certainly hope so.

It is time to begin.

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Insomnia 2012

I couldn't sleep. It was funny, before coming home for Christmas break, my Creative Writing professor has us write a memoir about a Christmas memory, and I chose to write about mt insomnia once. I didn't imagine that such an event would happen again, since it had been years since I'd had a sleeping problem on Christmas Eve.

Oh, how very wrong I was.

I recently saw The Hobbit in theaters three times, conveniently only paying for one of them, and I loved it. I am also irrationally in love with Kili the Dwarf. Yes, sometimes I get slightly concerned for my mental health, but when I convince myself that a fictional character is my soulmate, I just tend to write so very well. So I was spending my Christmas Eve looking up things on the internet about The Hobbit.

The day didn't start off well. I knew Peter Jackson was adding in a female elf, but I wasn't aware that he was adding her in to be a love interest for Kili. This got me irrationally upset, for a variety of reasons. I am only slightly ashamed to admit that the largest was because I was jealous. The others were because it doesn't really seem like something Tolkein would have done.

My problems were lessened a bit when I saw a post by Aidan Turner, Kili's actor, that said his character knew nothing could happen. This led me to believe it was more like how Gimli had a minor crush on Galadriel in The Fellowship of the Ring. And I decided I could handle that. Curious, I kept looking through comments and blogs about the situation, and I was shocked to find one that said (SPOILERS, SO DEAR LORD IF YOU DID NOT LEAVE BEFORE WHEN I STALLED OUT FOREVER, I HOLD NO RESPONSIBILITY FOR THIS) both characters would probably be dead by the end of the three movies anyway, so he didn't much suppose it mattered.

My heart took that opportunity to stop.

I had come to terms with my fictional dwarf thinking some elf woman was pretty and trying to woo her. I was like, "okay, it isn't like it would work out anyway." But this? Death? That was a more permanent problem.

Unfortunately, I was then distracted by my sisters forcing me to help them make the lovely gingerbread house shown above, so I had to migrate my research to my iPhone.

I had read The Hobbit before. I remembered all of the main scenes. Why didn't I remember Kili dying? And, what's that internet? Fili dies too? To attempt to protect a mortally wounded Thorin? Who then also dies anyway?

My heart was breaking into a thousand little pieces, falling all over the kitchen floor, but I had to hide it. I couldn't very well tell my sisters or mother about my problem, or they would undoubtedly send me to the loony bin due to my clear insanity. Instead, I hid my heartbreak and distracted myself with the gingerbread house (which turned out so very lovely).

I continued to distract myself for the rest of the evening. Though the dilemma occasionally crossed my mind, I was focused on watching Elf, opening my new pajamas and seeing everyone else's, and watching Scrooge. But when Scrooge was over, the trouble began.

It was time to go to my room.

I was fine for a while. I played World of Warcraft. Granted, I couldn't play my dwarf hunter because, not only was she a dwarf because of how much I loved The Hobbit, she has a pet cat named Kili and I figured it would just make me depressed. So I played different characters, until eventually I felt tired.

And then all hell - within my mind, of course - broke loose.

Every time I would look at my background and see Kili, Fili, or Thorin, I would get irrationally depressed and almost cry. I was listening to The Hobbit soundtrack, but some of the songs were also causing the same effect. I still didn't turn it off, and I tried to sleep.

It wasn't working. And, lord save my soul, I had begun to actually cry. And there were no tissues within an arm's reach. Disastrous.

So I decided I would email my dearest roommate and friend, Grace.

One day you are going to answer my email. Probably tomorrow (today?), when I won't be able to see your response because I will be in the middle of nowhere, with no internet, in South Carolina. Or the next day. When I will also be there. Really, not excited about it. And I have a problem. Every time I look at the background of my computer, my eyes start getting all teary and I sometimes start crying. However, I am not willing to take off my Kili theme. I am trying to figure out how I got past this with L. Possibly because he is still there for the rest of the show in spirit. And because Near is very similar to him. But really, Kili hasn't even died yet. That is going to be in the summer of 2014. So why on earth am I being so emotional right now? It sucks, yo. J.R.R. Tolkein is a cruel, cruel man. As is Peter Jackson. Why did he have to make the three characters that die the three most attractive/connectable-to/awesome? (Aside from the hedgehog, of course, but he died for a brief moment as well. Just saying.) Couldn't he have made... Bombur super attractive? Or like... Ori? There were plenty of dwarves. Why does he feel the need to torture his poor, fangirling audience members? When HE caused the fangirling! It is, again, cruel. Mistreatment of the public, I daresay. And poor Aiden Dewhurst; there is now no escape for him from being very, very alike to Kili. I will refrain from making him royalty, and refrain from making him a dwarf. It was all I could do not to go and immediately change his eye color to a chocolately brown.

I was sitting at my desk with my computer open when I minimized the internet after being super upset about the whole Kili dying thing, and I noticed the amazingly attractive face on my background. My eyes got all watery, again, and my poor little heart broke, again, like it has been all day for various reasons, and I observed how everything about said face on my background was Aiden except for the eyes.

Because Aidan Turner has chocolately brown eyes, but Aiden Dewhurst has very bright, green eyes. I thought to myself, "Christina, all you have to do is change the description of his eyes in chapter one and then tell Shayna the change; it isn't as if she has even started to draw him, much less color him, yet."

But then, my stronger self, the one that managed to move on past L's death, said "No, Christina. There was a reason you gave Aiden green eyes, not only because you didn't want him to be one hundred percent identical to Kili. You cannot, I repeat CANNOT, change it."

My weaker, heartbroken self responded with "But it could still work if his eyes were deep and chocolately and blah blah blah (I can assure you, self, that I can make describing Aidan Turner/Kili's eyes sound EXTREMELY gooey and romantic, perhaps even moreso than with bright green ones). Does it really make a difference? The readers will never know that Aiden is heavily based, physically, on Kili the dwarf. Only my friends and family would even notice, and only because I am obsessed. So why can't I?"

"Because," my stronger self began, "you need to have a point of reference, physically, that reminds you that Aiden is not Kili."

"But doesn't the fact that he is tall count? Kili is short."

"No. Because you don't picture Kili as short, because he is always around other dwarves. But eye color. You pay attention to eye color. This way if you get too drawn in, you can mention the eye color to pull back out and remember that, as much as they have in common, Aiden is NOT Kili."

"But all I want to do right now is immortalize Kili. Because I love him." <---- (Look at this irrational, emotional response! It reminds me of you when you are upset. O.O) <3

"First of all, he is a fictional character. Therefore, he is not real. So even when you are forced to watch him die to save his uncle on a very large screen in 3D and possibly 48fps, he is not really dying. In fact, Aidan Turner is not dying at all. Secondly, you should not be in love with a fictional character. Again, he is not real. He will never be real. Also, it is unlikely that you will find anyone on earth right now who is that attractive, funny, intelligent, trained with a bow and arrow, and can pull off the long hair. Third, you tried to write fan fiction after L died because you wanted to find a way to bring him back. But you never actually wrote it. You got over it. Therefore, I think it is safe to assume you can get over this as well. I am relatively certain that you are no more in love with Kili than you were initially with L, Envy, Lavi, Riku, or any of the other fictional men that have each captured parts of your heart. You. Will. Get. Over. It."

My argument was extremely logical, and you know how I respond to logical arguments. Usually if someone lays the facts down in front of my eyes, I can understand them and stop being emotionally irrational. But you may recall when I told you that (insert name of male I recently had a huge crush on but am not willing to share with the public here) was the exception to that rule.

I lied.

The true exception is any person, fictional or not, that I feel a strong, romantic, emotional attachment to. (I didn't lie on purpose, by the way. I just wasn't thinking about fictional characters during that particular late-night chat.) And, right now, that person is Kili. Somehow I end up feeling as strongly for fictional characters as if they were real. It is really a problem. And I may need to, one day, see a therapist about it. Unless I find a man who doesn't care. Writing does help some, but with the current circumstance it just makes me want to cry more.

I also can't sleep. Which is why I narrated my dilemma to you like it was creative nonfiction. It seemed entertaining, and I want to write.

Now then, what I do need you to tell me, along with the things mentioned in the previous email about naming the animals, if you think it would be too much to change Aiden's eye color. I haven't looked at a picture of Kili in about an hour, so most of me is on the "keep them green" side, but the moment I see a picture that is likely to waver.

And I also need you to tell me whether I am certifiably insane and legitimately need to see a psychiatrist before I harm someone (myself included). Or if you think I am insane but no treatment is needed because I am clearly passive and won't harm anyone (including myself). Or if you don't think I am insane at all, and that this kind of an attachment to a fictional character is completely normal. Especially doing it multiple times. I have a very, very long list of fictional characters I have had this problem with in the past. However, I usually am not writing a story with a character similar to them in it, nor do I spontaneously find out that they are going to die in the final installment of whatever they are in after the creator goes through a bunch of trouble to get me emotionally attached to them. Hence why Kili is being more of a problem than most.

Maybe it would help if I had my shirt.

It hasn't come in yet.

Neither has my poster.

Or my phone case.

Or my J-Pop CDs.

Sad life.

I have been writing this email for a long time. I would like to let you know that I apologize for writing you a novel, but it really does help me with emotional instability if I can write it all down and share it with someone. You get to be that lucky person. Because my family won't let me tell them what has me upset because I told them I found out something about the end of the Hobbit that I would have been better off not knowing.

That isn't entirely true, by the way. I mean I am sure I would have found out before the third movie came out anyway, but it still matters. What if I hadn't known and went to the third movie without a huge box of tissues and a blanket and a large stuffed animal to cuddle? It would come as a surprise. And then I would probably have a heart attack or going running out of the theater with tears streaming down my face and no one would understand what was wrong because no one else is so damn obsessed with a stupid fictional character to freak out this much about them freaking DYING.

And then I hear the damn Blunt the Knives song and it makes me really happy, but then really sad. Because... I mean, I think you get it.

Really though. If I ever am planning on killing off a character that I have gone through any length to keep my readers emotionally attached to without an EXTREMELY good reason, yell at me, remind me how I felt when I found out about Kili dying, and if I still don't believe you, show me this email. Because, in the event that I am not the only psycho like me in the world, I do not want to put anyone through the pain and torture that I have been through today.

Ever.

It is cruel.

And so, so depressing.

And it is Christmas, so that just isn't allowed. 

I am supposed to be happy.

Damn.

You.

J.

R.

R.

Tolkein.

And.

Peter.

Jackson.

Anyway, sorry to write you a novel. I do hope you read all of it. Because I just put about an hour's work into writing it. And I would be sad if you didn't read all of it.

I hope it entertained you at least a little, and that you don't ask for a roommate switch now that you have seen the full brunt of my crazy. (This is actually the worst of it. I don't think I am hiding any other strange, mental issues from you. Intentionally or unintentionally.)

Thank you for your lovely time, and I hope you respond to my email.

Even if I don't get to read your response for a few days.

Because no internet.

Kill me.

I'm just going to be sitting around, trying not to cry about Kili.

This is not going to end well.

But Merry Christmas, and I will probably text you a bunch, but it would probably be a good idea to answer this email with another email as opposed to trying to respond to it in its lengthy glory via text message. Or phone call for that matter. No, email will be the best method there.

<3

I then continued to attempt to sleep, but still nothing was working. Conveniently, I write well when I am in an emotional state, especially when it involves a fictional character I think I am in love with. So, I wrote stuff. Lots of stuff. And I kept writing for a few hours before I decided that I really needed to sleep. Because it was almost 4:00 in the morning. I did, luckily, succeed.

In the morning, I was again distracted by presents. There were lots of them. Reminiscent of my older Insomnia memoir, I got a PlayStation 3 from dearest Santa this year. Very exciting. But then, we were done with presents eventually. And I was very sad.

And my sister convinced me that telling her about it would help, even though it was a huge, Australian spider-sized spoiler. So I did. And I proceeded to spend the next three hours crying my eyes out with some breaks in between. I moved all of my presents to my room, and I eventually managed to pull myself together enough to watch a video of Aidan Turner being interviewed about The Hobbit.

It was like magic.

I stopped crying.

Somehow, I don't know if it was the reminder that all three movies had been filmed and Kili's actor was still alive, or the ability I gained to separate the actor from the character to have a bit more of reality in the situation, but I was okay again. I watched a few more interviews and they made me laugh. I was able to continue on my Christmas day in peace.

Though, I should point out, my character Aiden does now have brown eyes. However, this decision was made later on, from a less heartbroken mind, and for reasons very different than the needs listed above. Plus, his personality really isn't anything like Kili's. If anyone is, it would be Isaac.

I may just be trying to justify myself right now, but I don't particularly care. And I will continue to funnel this emotional energy into writing my story.