Anxiety vs Panic Attacks

Anxiety is like the moment you miscount the steps in a stair case, you try to step on air, and for a split second, you think you’re going to die. Except your foot lands a few inches later, and you’re safe, and the adrenaline goes away. But for me… That feeling is constant, and my foot never lands. I don’t have a reason to feel like I’m in danger, but no amount of logic can make that adrenaline rush go away. In its lesser times, it’s just a minor irritation; I periodically check to make sure nobody’s standing behind me, count my exits, and I’m… fine. I can get through my day. In worse times, everything feels like a threat even before I figure out what it is. Motion at the corner of my eye makes me flinch like someone’s about to hit me, but then I turn to look and it’s just a flag waving across the parking lot visible through a window. Someone brushes up against me and I jump away from them, ready to defend myself. A car door opens and the flash of reflected sunlight looks like a weapon. My hair coming into contact with the side of my neck feels like I’m being strangled. My heart rate alternates between between shallow and sped up, and slow but seeming like it’s punching a hole out through my sternum.

If I can get away from all the stimulation, I can work on breathing techniques and ground myself in my environment to fight it back to a reasonable level. If I can’t get away in an abnormally high stress situation or setting, or if I’m specifically triggered by something, it turns into a full blown panic attack, which I can’t do anything about.

Panic attacks are… different from regular anxiety, or even those spikes that could be called anxiety attacks. At first, it’s just a little pressure in my ears and a slight difficulty focusing on anything. I get shaky and it’s hard to breathe, but I try to convince myself I can still function. It slowly gets worse, and it starts becoming increasingly difficult to speak clearly. I stutter for a while, but eventually just give up trying to talk at all. Everything seems exaggerated and unclear. Noises and voices become louder but less distinct, lights become brighter and overwhelm my vision, I smell things that aren’t there or which should be too faint to detect and they make me feel sick…

It’s like I’m underwater, and something has me by the ankle and is dragging me in some direction that may be either toward or away from the surface or both, and there’s bright amorphous lights everywhere and everything’s blurry, and it feels like there’s a massive pressure all around me like I’m being squeezed by a giant constrictor, and all the sounds around me are muffled but at the same time there’s a really loud… kind of like a roaring sound in my ears. My senses are all under assault, I can’t tell which way is up, I can’t identify any of my surroundings, and anything and everything is terrifying because I don’t know what any of it is. I can’t ground myself, and breathing techniques don’t work because I can’t breathe.

I stumble my way to some nook or hiding place (under desks, in closets, etc) and curl up in a tight little ball against the onslaught. Eventually I stop being able to sense anything at all, essentially blacking out though I’m still conscious, just unaware of anything that’s going on around me or of any time passing.

Depending on how quickly I was able to find a safe enough place to hide, a blackout may last a few minutes or several hours. I properly pass out at some point from mental and physical exhaustion. When I wake up… Sometimes I’m mentally fully functioning again but am really confused about where I am and what happened and why I’m sore all over; other times I still have severe vertigo and difficulty speaking and can barely move from how knotted up all my muscles are. It’s really frustrating to have something I need to say — usually asking people not to crowd me, because that makes things worse — but to not be able to form even basic words and sentences without intense concentration.

It may take me upwards of a week to fully recover from the worst ones. I can think I’m fine, but something tiny and random can set me off again, even if it’s not one of my specific triggers, just because of how tense I already am.

Harry Addams, Part 01

Saw a thing on facebook and was inspired. Since inspiration is so rare, I took advantage. Hopefully, I won’t lose interest before I finish this, as I have lots of fun ideas for later parts.

Obvious disclaimer is obvious: I don’t own Harry Potter or the Addams Family and am making no money off of this. 

~~~***~~~

October 7, 1985

Morticia Addams watched with pursed lips as her beautiful young daughter stalked onto the stage, dressed as a ridiculous pink rabbit. Her husband openly cringed at the sight, even as his mother-in-law leaned over and whispered, “At least the teacher let her keep the black apron and bow. Took us most of the night to replicate the pattern of that terrible blue one and replace it.”

Gomez grumbled under his breath, giving the chubby toddler on his knee a few bounces to keep them both calm. Pugsley glanced at the stage where the noises were coming from and wrinkled his nose at all the bright colors. All four fought to contain themselves as they sat though the monstrosity before them.

The first year play was over soon enough, thank LeFey. The Addamses hurriedly shuffled out of the primary school theater, glad to take a relaxing stroll through the night chill for a while as they waited for the older students to finish their mockeries of music and theater. They returned just in time for the release of the children back into the custody of their families.

As Gomez fawned over Wednesday, apologizing for not being able to convince the school board to replace the program with something more age appropriate, Morticia noticed a pair of boys nearly trip over her dress as the larger brother pulled the smaller one through the crowd. She reached out to help steady them and gathered up her skirt so it wouldn’t happen again. The small boy flinched slightly at her touch and mumbled a polite thank you, before being yanked off again. She watched them go.

The one who had spoken to her was adorably gaunt, with dark circles around his eyes and a lovely pallor. The other was unfortunately rosy cheeked, but had a pleasant girth and admirable strength for one his age. Together, they rather reminded her of Fester’s childhood photos.

The two made their way to a woman in a crisp dress made of pastel fabric and a large man in a neat brown suit. The gaunt boy took after his mother in build and eye color, but his dark hair obviously came from the father. His brother, on the other hand, had the mother’s light hair and the father’s roundness. She couldn’t quite see how the parents combined to get that wonderfully pale skin in their smaller child, but perhaps they were simply better at maintaining a healthy diet with him given his temperament.

Morticia leaned down to kiss Wednesday on the cheek – whispering as she did so, “I can see the scissors behind your back, darling. Go put them away; they’re not sharp enough for whatever you have in mind,” – then excused herself from the group.

She approached the family with an aristocratic grace. “Pardon me. I just wanted to say your children are quite delectable, and surprisingly well-mannered for their age. You must be very proud of them.”

The woman pulled her mouth into a tight smile. “Well, yes, of course we are quite proud of our boy Dudley. He’s an absolute jewel. That one,” she gave a terse gesture toward the smaller boy, “isn’t actually ours. We graciously allowed him into our home after the drunken louts he had for parents got themselves killed in a motor accident. We do what we can with him, but of course, one can’t completely escape one’s breeding.” Her husband nodded sagely, ruffling his son’s hair with one hand and keeping a tight grip on their foster child’s shoulder. Dudley grinned at the praise he received and, almost on cue, sneered at the smaller one, who kept a steady gaze on the floor.

Morticia tilted her head back a few degrees and looked at them through lidded eyes. “I see. Well, may I ask how you manage to keep the order in your household, given your… situation?”

Dudley’s mother motioned toward the gaunt boy’s clothes, which were, upon closer inspection, obviously the wrong size and rather ragged. “Well for starters, we make sure he never forgets his place. He’s ungrateful as it is for the roof over his head; we don’t need him becoming dependent on handouts. He works for everything he has. If he doesn’t earn it, he doesn’t get it.” She turned to gaze lovingly at her son. “After all, we can’t have a lazy good-for-nothing taking food from our poor Dudder’s mouth, can we?”

The wealthy matriarch slowly crossed her arms and went inhumanly still. Her demure smile widened ever so slightly, distracting from the cold darkness that peeked out under her long eyelashes. “Well, discipline is a very important lesson to teach one’s children. Speaking of which, I must be going, to ensure my own brood don’t lose theirs. I am glad to have met you…?”

“Petunia Dursley,” the woman supplied. “And this is my husband, Vernon.”

The man straightened his suit jacket. “Happy to meet such a charming, well-bred woman.”

“Indeed,” Morticia purred. “Have a good evening.”

***

It took less convincing to get Gomez on board with her plan than it did to persuade him that his part in it would be to take their two children home and put them to bed. She loved her man a great deal, but his Gryffindor spark just couldn’t be bothered to use subtlety. It was difficult enough to keep him from loudly challenging Vernon to a duel right there.

Grandmama was quite gleeful at the chance to use the emergency stash of potions she kept in the trunk of the family hearse, but had to apparate home to retrieve and quickly clean the large carpet bag she used for transporting bodies. She couldn’t quite remember when she’d last emptied it, either; perhaps some fond memories would come with the chore.

Morticia gave Lurch his and Thing’s assignment before he left to drive Gomez and the children home, then pulled her spindly grey wand from her sleeve. A few muttered words later, and the Dursleys didn’t notice the disillusioned witch following their car home on her summoned broom.

Attachment

I told you what we were going to do. I asked your permission. You and I both agreed it was a bad idea for me to choose you, but I needed us to attach to someone and you allowed it because we also knew there was no one better. But you still don’t understand why we needed it. Why I don’t work to temper it, or ignore it. You said your goal is to get us to stop needing to do this, but how can you teach us that if you don’t understand the need in the first place?

You’ve met some of us. I’ve told you about the rest. You know who we are, but you still fail to see how deep the problem goes, how significant the fractures are. You still see us as one person, one single being with the potential for completeness. But while we may add up to a sum whole, that whole is long broken and cannot be repaired.

When I chose you, I told you I had no way to prevent the attachment, only to aim it. That was a lie. I can prevent it, but to do so would cause damages I was not prepared to risk at the time. I am prepared to accept that risk now and remove my attachment, transfer it if possible or destroy it as necessary. But first I need you to understand why I did not wish to accept that as an option.

I function as the main filter and control center of the outer system. I have specific coded responses to specific internal and external stimuli. Direct input equals direct output. Contradictory or variant input results in erratic output at worst, or a complete shut down of the system at best. When I transferred our attachment to you, I placed you above all else in my protocols. I gave you top priority over every code, every command, every behavioral or emotional output. I can disregard any other input necessary to make sure you receive the best end of anything and everything I can provide you, to the best of my ability. I make no claims to be perfect in those provisions, but I will nevertheless always make every attempt to be.

Even Nix has accepted that priority and applied it to the entire inner system. We will do nothing purposefully which we know will or might bring you harm. Temporary or permanent, physical or emotional. We will never willingly allow ourself to be the cause of any of your suffering, and if we do so unwillingly, we will be at severe unrest until we can make it right. If you suffer by another cause than ourself, we will defend or support you in any way that we are able. We will redefine our own abilities if we must, if you need it. This is the strength of the connection we made between ourself and you.

When you are happy with life and happy with us, we can find contentment in that. When you are upset with something or someone else, we can focus on helping you and find our own comforts in following that purpose. Four can cuddle you for her sake or yours, and it will keep her from dwelling on the various traumas that she carries. Nox can put all his efforts into entertaining you in positive manners, and not feel the need to fall into damaging forms of humor. M will focus his intellectual pursuits on relatively pleasant endeavors and projects, such as writing stories you might enjoy. Mathias will seek to make and keep you happy and will rise in anger only to protect you, which prevents him from dwelling on distant threats to us. This in turn prevents V from rising up in general, and keeps him productive if he does start to lose his temper. So generally speaking, our entire inner system runs much more smoothly and I am better prepared to deal with other stresses.

But when you become so angry with us that you refuse to speak to us, or when you cry and I know that it’s because of us, two things happen. First, I fear the suffering we may have caused, and am pained at my inability to reconcile it immediately. I recognize that speaking to you before you are ready will only make things worse, but to sit idly by and wait for you to come to us is agonizing.

Second, I am terrified that I have threatened the connection which gives the attachment hold. Not we, I. Because I haven’t yet reached the point where my coding can adapt to every situation, so I effectively allowed the behavioral output which upset you to begin with. The others are what they are. They cannot change themselves. They cannot express themselves through the outer system without my permission, cannot physically act or speak outside of the bounds of my protocols. Thus what is done by the body or spoken aloud is my fault, not ours.

I have told you I am incapable of feeling emotion. That was not a lie. Rather, it was inaccurate. I experience emotion as a set of data, as I experience all things. The priority level or sheer quantity of that data determines the severity of the word used to describe it, thus a recognized need for caution in a given instance can be described as fear or terror depending on the details. You, your well-being, and my ability to maintain our attachment to you is placed at highest priority, as I have said. Highest priority after you is limiting self suffering and general survival. In that order.

If I remove our attachment to you, or lose hold of the connection that anchors it, the inner system falls to chaos. And I lack the protocols to properly and safely handle that chaos without altogether removing internal input from my codes. Say M decides he wants to know how burns and cuts feel different, and has no qualms about testing it. Protocols prevent that action, as that would break first priority of limiting self suffering by causing physical pain. But as his thoughts start to drown out other stresses, the protocols become conflicted (physical versus mental suffering), and I become focused on an argument between him, Simon, and Candy because I now have to make an active choice. Nox wants to pull a prank that might be dangerous or make a joke that is highly inappropriate, and does so since Simon and I are too distracted to stop him. Four has a complete emotional meltdown because a customer threw a tantrum about Nox’s bad joke and called us stupid. Mathias wants to yell at the customer, and V wants to break things and perhaps punch them in the face. Speaking of which, M wants to know if the angle of concussion effects the shatter pattern of a wine glass, and that gets V wondering what’s the best way to break it to slit someone’s throat? Simon overloads trying to yell in five directions at once.

So then I’m stuck having to choose between allowing Four’s panic attack to be externally visible while in public (which can cause social suffering), having a violent outburst (social suffering and possibly physical suffering as well, depending on the severity of behavior), or shut down all but the most basic protocols and go through the day like an actual robot. What someone said isn’t in my catalog of pre-programmed interactions? They will get no response whatsoever. I will not talk to any customer other than to inform them of the total price of their purchase. I will not say anything to my boss besides “Yes, sir” and “I need a Code Three, please.” I will not smile, frown, laugh, grimace, or look confused. I will stare, sometimes blink. And if I’m lucky, M won’t pop up when the system starts rebooting to niggle me with a new idea for a way to end up dead without hurting ourself more than simply being alive hurts us.

While we are attached to someone and while the reason I chose that person is still applicable, there is a certain level of guaranteed safety of the outer system. Even when M comes up with ideas about self harming or Four thinks it would be better to go to sleep and never wake up, I don’t need to directly activate any protocols to prevent them from taking those actions. I don’t need to fight them. They are automatically prevented. Suicide without physical pain to end all suffering, or physical suffering induced to distract from and limit emotional suffering — these things may be technically acceptable under the priority scale where survival comes last, but they are completely unacceptable under the priority scale where you trump everything else. I understand that anything which clearly damages us in any way, also damages you. And my protocols cannot allow that.

The idea of giving up our attachment or losing the connection behind it terrifies me because the moment I stop putting you first, or if I keep putting you first but we stop believing that injuring ourself negatively impacts you… I lose all power to keep trying, keep surviving. You want me to do things for “myself”. But all I am is a series of codes trying to serve a purpose. A purpose cannot be its own reason, so how can I do anything just for me? I exist to make sure the internal system functions in relation to the external world. This is the most successful program I have found to do so. Even when it has reached its worst points, the system has been safer than with any other method I have tried. So for the moment, I will keep doing this.

However, you are still highest priority. If our attachment to you hurts you, the protocols allow me to sacrifice our well-being and remove it, to protect you. I have decided not to allow an automatic transfer to any available candidate this time around. I will not deny that we gained something from our attachments to people like Wolf Tail and Rabbit Ears, but those ended with too much suffering to be worth taking the same risk again. If there are no good, solid candidates after you who are willing and able to maintain the connection needed, then I will destroy this program altogether. The system will be in danger until a new program can be established, but I might be strong enough to get past it this time.

Some shitty journal thing I guess

So since I’ve noticed nobody really reads anything here except the stuff I specifically link to people on facebook, I’m just gonna write down some stuff that’s going on in my head right now because hey, nobody cares anyway.

Clearly, I’m in a super depressive state right now. But I don’t have anything I can do about it. The people I’d normally cuddle up to until I feel like life is worth trying are refusing to talk to me and in a bad place to be close to me, respectively. Boyfriend is blueballing because my normally stupidly low sex drive has plummeted even further over the last few weeks due to my depression, and I can’t really ask him to give me comfort when the thing I need only makes his problem worse. And my snuggle buddy roommate is pissed off at me because I worded the beginning of something really really horribly and she stormed out before I could finish the thought and after giving me a passive aggressive comment about staying out of my way she’s stopped talking to me at all and won’t even sit in the same room with me. I can’t even take half a dozen sleeping pills and just pass out for twelve hours because she’s in there and I’m in the living room. So now I’m sitting here feeling guilty as shit and trying to fight off the urges to do dumb shit like take a walk at 10pm and see how far I get before my twisted spine just gives out on me, or test how long I can hold a lighter to my finger before the autonomic reflexes force me to pull away and maybe see if I can cut my hand without screaming like they do in the movies to make blood pacts but deeper. But at the same time I’m wondering what the point is to even trying and whether any of my usual reasons not to do these things is even worth it. Working any job is physically breaking me even on good days, and on bad days is emotionally destructive, but if I don’t work I end up homeless and lose any remaining feelings of self worth. Spending time with people is stressful and regularly causes me to break down or have anxiety attacks, but I’m terrified of being alone because that’s when the voices get louder and I’m scared one of these days my fear of pain isn’t going to be enough to stop me from trying to do something completely irreparable. If I could find a way to end up dead without feeling anything and without any chance of accidentally surviving it, I probably would have by now. And aside from knowing everything would be worse for me after a failed attempt, the only thing really preventing me from trying is that I don’t want to cause anyone around me any suffering. But I’m feeling more and more like they’d be better off without me and maybe the temporary grief wouldn’t be so bad and they’d end up more relieved than anything once they realized they didn’t have to worry about me anymore and weren’t spending the rest of their lives waiting for the shoe to drop so they might be able to catch it. I just… I don’t know what to do, and I can’t talk to anyone about anything, and everything’s just swirling around in my head and I don’t want to be awake right now. I’m too broken to even cry right now. Like I have the headache and my nose is a little stuffed up, but the tears aren’t coming and and I’m still breathing the way I always do. I think I’m going to go curl up in a small dark place for a while. I hope I don’t remember this in the morning. Nix better file this away somewhere I can’t reach it. I’m tired of trying to handle this shit.

Love is the Word

Love is not a feeling, an emotion. Love is a word. And the thing about words is, they never have one universal meaning. Meaning is derived by context, and the context of Love has always been different between us. The meaning I have placed to it has been so deeply steeped within me that I cannot place your meaning to it.

 

After any given instance wherein my father had grabbed me by the hair and jerked my head against a wall to punctuate his ranting speech about how worthless and lazy I was, Love was the word he would use last. He would smile and shake his head as he pulled away, as if I were silly for being where I was. After I had spent an hour crying in bed, lying on my stomach because my legs, bottom, and lower back hurt too much to stand, he would come in my room and use the word Love. If I didn’t respond positively, or even sometimes if I did, his yelling would then begin again. When I adopted myself out at eighteen, Love was the word he used right before he told us all that they would get sick of me and send me back in a month. Two years later, when my older sister and I broke down crying and together tried to make him understand how much he had hurt us, how much fear and self-loathing we still harbored even as adults, Love was the word he used. Love was the word he used as he crossed his arms, looked at the wall behind us, and spoke the way a child says an insincere, forced Sorry. Love is the word he uses when he apologizes that I have such a sad, wrong memory of his treatment of me, when he says he wishes I could just understand that he never did anything wrong to deserve my lack of it.

Love was the word used by my uncle, oldest of my father’s siblings. When I was very small, he was my favorite uncle who provided me with treats and toys and told jokes that sounded funny even when I couldn’t understand them. By the time I was ten, the mere mention of his name made me uncomfortable and I had an inexplicable fear of being in his presence. When I was raped at fourteen by a stranger, the woman at the hospital who examined me was disturbed by my demeanor in the aftermath. She apologized for touching me where she was, but I simply shrugged it off. I was used to it. To my perception, putting a hand in those regions was a normal way for some people to show Love. By that point, my waking fear had numbed to a dull acceptance. I felt guilty for my nightmares. After the older daughter of that uncle committed suicide, his younger daughter and my aunts opened up to me behind closed doors about his sexual abuse. When they refused to tell the police about him, Love was the word they used to explain to me why it was somehow better to keep silent.

Love was the word used by my mother when she couldn’t quite bring herself to apologize for not standing up to my father for me. Love is the word she uses when she tries to convince herself and me that his behavior was somehow excusable, that it wasn’t his fault, that everything would be okay if I just smile and make peace with him. Love is the word she and many others use to reason denial of past and present abuse, as if it’s somehow easier to bear a burden you pretend doesn’t exist.

Love is the word used by my younger biological sister when she is trying to make me feel guilty for treating my adoptive family as real family, and not giving my blood relatives special priority at all times. Love is the word she uses when tells me she misses the way our family was before I “destroyed” it, that she wishes I could just let the bad stuff go, because it’s not important anyway since we all Love each other so much. I suppose I can understand that, because Love is probably the reason I didn’t break ties completely with the people who raised me.

Love was the word my husband used when he became fed up with how slowly I was making progress, how long it was taking before I could just overcome my various traumas. Love was the word he used to convince me that he had a marital right, that I was obligated to make him feel better and do whatever it took to give him physical relief. After I spent two hours on the couch as he stood over me, screaming and insulting me for being weak and not caring enough, Love was the word he used to ask me to just try harder, so he wouldn’t have to get angry with me. When I finally gave up and asked for divorce, Love was the word he used when he told me that he could have made my life a living hell and that I should be grateful he didn’t treat me worse. Love was the word he hated me for not saying back to him, for not being able to say at all. When he said the word, he was my father, and my uncle, and he felt to me the same as they did, spoke to me the same as they did, treated me the same as they had. If I had said the word, I would have been the same as my aunts, and my mother, and my sister. I would have said it the way they do, as a reason to lie down and accept whatever was given to me as a gracious gift, to give whatever is wanted from me regardless of what I want for myself.

Love was the word used by someone I believed to be a friend, each time I woke up from a nap with his fingers inside me and he told me he was trying to teach me how good it could feel. Love was the word he used repeatedly to convince me not to tell anyone, to give him more chances and keep spending time with him. Love was the word he used to explain why it kept happening. If I could say it, Love would be the word I would use to explain why I kept letting it happen, why I keep connecting to people who speak and behave this way. Because this is the only Love I know, the only kind I understand.

Love is the word used by preachers who want me to follow a god they say will condemn me to an eternity of pain and misery if I don’t. Love is the word used by people like my father, my sister, my ex-husband, who believe there is only one “right” way to Love. That if you fail to express Love in that one way, then you deserve to be punished, to suffer and be abandoned to your suffering.

Love is the word used by people who want to change me, want to fix me, but won’t address why I’m broken or what needs to be changed or how I can be fixed. Love is the word used by people who want to see results but refuse to stick around through the struggle. Love is the word used by people who want me to be “better” without understanding just how bad it all can be, how low my starting point is. Love is the word used by people who set the bar too high, then criticize me for failing to meet their expectations.

Love is the word used by people who want me to trust them, but can’t comprehend how hard that is. Love is the word used by people who swear they’ll never give up on me, then inevitably fade away as they change and grow and go wherever life takes them, while I’m stuck in the same place I’ve always been.

 

So when you told me you love me, and I responded by shuffling in place and mumbling a non-answer — or by flinching outright and trying to leave the conversation altogether — please understand, it’s not because I take issue with what you feel. I have barely begun to conceptualize what you feel. I take issue with the word you used. Love is the word which has been used to create fear, to justify oppression and cruelty, to reason inaction and willful ignorance. And I understand those things, the things which have sunk deep into my being and tainted me. The feelings you try to express, the emotions and desires I have seen acted out in movies and described in books, are almost completely outside my comprehension. Even if I claim to have a basic grasp of the meaning you intended, I cannot internalize it. To try to use Love as the word for such new and ill-defined ideas is useless to me, a thin layer of perfume over a rotting corpse. So I apologize for flinching, but I acknowledge that I will likely do so a thousand more times before I can numb myself to the past and stop reacting this way. Love is not what you believe it is. Love is the word, not the meaning. Please, use another.

The Scene That Ended It All

And that’s when a purple skinned elf randomly apparated into the scene, singing,

“This is the song that never ends,

Yes it goes on and on my friends.

Some people started singing it, not knowing what it was,

And they’ll continue singing it forever just because

“This is the song that never ends,

Yes it goes on and on my friends.

Some people started singing it, not knowing what it was,

And they’ll continue singing it forever just because

This is the song that never ends –”

“Who the heck are you?” Ron asked, crossing his eyes in confusion.

“Dobby, sir! Dobby the house elf!”

“Okay… and why are you singing the song that never ends?”

“Because the author of this story couldn’t figure out how to break the awkward silence, and therefore threw Dobby in as a filler until her mind gets back on track!”

“Well, I guess that answers the question of whether or not you guys are also fictitious characters,” Kim said blandly.

“So the Fearsome Ferret IS a TV show within a TV show within a TV show!” Ron exclaimed.

“Actually, sir,” Dobby held up a finger, “It’s a TV show within a TV show within a Nanowrimo novel.”

“A what novel?”

“National Novel Writing Month, also known as NaNoWriMo. It’s where people try to write fifty thousand words worth of a novel within the thirty days of November.”

“Does this novel have to make any sense?” Mr. Kovach asked with a raised eyebrow. “Is there any criteria for it at all?”

“Nope! Just to get as many words as possible! That’s why the author was having Dobby sing the song that never ends –”

“Because if you sing it long enough, you’ll eventually get fifty thousand words worth of it,” Bear deduced with a smirk.

“Not fifty thousand words worth of it,” Rainbow corrected him. “Just about twelve hundred or so, to get past the finish line.”

“And you know this because…?”

She shrugged. “Because the author wanted someone to say it, but she didn’t want to have Dobby monologue it all.”

Said house elf then returned to singing,

“I know a song that gets on everybody’s nerves,

Everybody’s nerves, everybody’s nerves!

I know a song that gets on everybody’s nerves,

And this is how it goes!”

“Shut up!” snapped Raven. “You’re even annoying the author, and she’s the one writing it!”

“Then what should Dobby do to make more words?” The elf lowered his ears in shame.

“Try describing this carpet,” Branded told the little creature, making an ornate decorative rug appear in front of himself. It was mostly several different shades of blue and violet, with gold swirls and a pair of mirroring flame designs. It randomly whacked the lion boy upside the head with one of its corner tassels, and proceeded to fly away haughtily.

“Why are you purple?” Ron suddenly thought to ask Dobby. His naked mole rat nodded and let out a series of squeaks that could be translated as, “Yeah, why?”

“Dobby doesn’t have a clue, sir,” the little elf answered dutifully. “The author wanted an adjective, and used the first one that came to her mind, so she made Dobby’s skin purple. Dobby looks very pretty in purple,” he added, pointing to his mismatched socks. One sock was red and yellow striped, and the other was checkered with purple and green. He was also wearing a black top hat over a hunter’s orange beanie, and a blue sweater with a reindeer pattern on it.

“Wow. Just… wow,” Kim said, shaking her head.

“That’s… colorful,” Mr. Kovach said needlessly, scratching his head awkwardly.

“This is the weirdest scene you’ve written yet,” a cackly old man’s voice said from nowhere. It was the author’s Inner Editor. “Why are you still writing? You should totally give up right now. Or just backspace this whole part and write in something that at least makes sense!”

“NO!” another voice jumped in. This one sounded like a very young child, one young enough to remember the pride in a scribble that must be explained multiple times before anyone knows what it is. “Who care’s if it’s not perfect! This randomness if FUN! And you can go back and fix it later! Right now, you’re almost done! Only five hundred ish words to go!”

“Yeah!” Leroy the mountain duck put in. “Licker Goat Steve and I think this is great! Keep going! And at least it makes more sense than MY story!” Then he and the octopus started to sing,

“The wheels on the bus go round and round,

Round and round, round and round!

The wheels on the bus go round and round,

All through the town!”

Then Mr. Kovach joined in the chaos, singing,

“You better watch out, you better not cry,

You better not pout, I’m telling you why!

Santa Claus is coming to town!”

“Wrong!” Linus jumped in, holding his iconic blue baby blanket. “It’s not even December yet! Why has Christmas become so commercialized? The radio stations start playing Christmas carols in early November, and the stores start selling colorful lights and trees and decorations and wall paper and ornaments before Halloween is even over! People should be paying more respect to the Great Pumpkin!”

“Will this ever go back to making sense?” Raven asked, rubbing his temples.

“Probably not,” Bear replied. “She’s close enough now that it doesn’t have to anymore. It’s all downhill from now on, for us!”

“At least she hasn’t thrown in the werewolves yet,” Mr. Kovach pointed out. “We can be thankful for that!”

“Oh dear,” the white rabbit fretted, gripping his watch as he shook. “Now you’ve given her an idea, and I don’t have time to spend running away! I’m very very late!”

“You’re always late,” Danny Phantom reminded him. “Your watch is two weeks slow, remember? Taking five minutes to run from a random monster in the strangest crossover fanfiction story I’ve ever seen won’t make you any worse off than if you were still in your own story.”

“Will you ever get back to explaining how a pile of demonic looking skeletons got here?” Ron asked, trying to pull his short blonde hair out in frustration.

“Ooh, carrots! Skeletons?!” Mr. Kovach repeated anxiously, then bolted. He ran a good fifty feet down the hall before a big huge massive sign randomly came down and landed on his head, breaking his neck and killing him.

“What’s it say?” Ariel asked, completely ignoring the dead human. Yzma cackled maniacally, and ordered Kronk to pick the sign up and read it. The disproportionally shaped strong man shrugged and moved to lift the sign up so they could see.

“That’s grammatically incorrect!” The Inner Editor announced.

“Shut up!” The Human Torch shouted, lighting the Editor’s pants on fire. The Editor screamed and ran away, hopping wildly as he went. “I don’t think he’ll be coming back before December,” the flaming super hero said with a wink. Then he saluted sarcastically, and motioned for Kronk to read the big sign.

“It says in big red squiggly neon letters, THE END!” he exclaimed joyfully. “The author has finally reached fifty thousand words!”

There was a collective yell of, “HOORAY!” as the author thanked all of the characters and sent them back to their own worlds. And the lucky forty-nine thousand, nine hundred ninety-ninth and fifty thousandth words very intentionally were,

THE END!

Writing Challenge Part 1, FAIL

Life happened, and I find it way too easy to accept any excuse to give up. Still going to try Nano, but for now, I just can’t handle work and chores and sick and Mother Nature and a daily writing goal. Hrrum, sigh. Maybe in a week or two I’ll be more ready to try something big-ish, but for now… Nope. Durn it.

Day 4 of Writing Challenge 2014

More fail, but not as much as the day before. 2839 out of 4167/5556. 214 words in the day, out of 833/1111.

New plan for Days 5, 7, and 8! Take my laptop with me to work, and when work is done and I get kicked out of the building (the janitor can’t be alone in the building after hours, how weird is that?) I will go to the Loaf N Jug across the street where there is no internet access to distract me, and not call my chauffeur to pick me up until I have caught up with my writing. Depending on how well this works, I may repeat it in future weeks. Updates later tonight!

Day 3 of Writing Challenge 2014

Fail. Fail fail fail fail FAIL. I opened up a chapter that I swear is 90% done already, stared at it blankly for an hour, knowing EXACTLY how to finish but having no motivation whatsoever to actually do so… And then eventually settled on a bout of find-and-replace to turn all the contractions into individual words, and called that my word count for the day. So. Much. FAIL! >.<

DrMI Mathias Backstory Monologue

Writing Challenge 2014, Days 1 & 2. This snippet: 2591 . Total word count: 2591. Total Goal: 1667/2222.

I was born in the mid-fourteenth century. The world has a word for people like me now: albino. But at the time, having silver eyes and skin white as marble that burned in sunlight meant only one thing. Vampire. A bastard child is always a slave to his circumstances, and more so when everyone around him assumes he has been cursed by a member of the undead.

My birth mother feared and hated me. Even as a toddler, I knew this. I forgave her for it, so many times. What child wouldn’t? Some of the other villagers felt pity rather than hate, but they feared me also. When the seemingly endless baptisms proved futile and the priests eventually gave up trying to “save” me, everyone looked the other way when my birth mother began trying to beat the supposed demons out of me.

The fear and hatred grew as I did. I learned to speak at a very young age, and I knew things no child should. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I was sharing my mind with those who came near me. Feeling their fears, angers, griefs, and unconsciously forcing them to feel mine. I knew when men no longer loved their wives, when children lied to their parents, when people were hungry or in pain. Sometimes I carried memories not my own for weeks before my mind learned to separate them, and people knew because at that time, I didn’t know better than to speak of them. I believed them to be dreams or odd thoughts, nothing more. The ones who had experienced what I spoke of, knew better. It was yet another thing about me that no one understood, and it is in human nature to fear what one does not understand. Many explanations were offered up for my strange magics, most of which involved demons, witch curses, or holy punishment. The beatings got worse.

Eventually, things reached a peak. I don’t know if it was just a normal beating that went wrong, or if she intended to kill me with that knife. It doesn’t matter, really, anyway. Regardless, I was bleeding badly, in too much pain to sort through everything I was feeling, and the woman who bore me was standing over me with the blade that cut me. I don’t know who was more afraid, myself or her; I was only aware of one great mass of mixed fear and anger, clouded by anguish.

She came to a decision, after a short eternity. She picked me up and carried me out of the house, ignoring the blood on her clothes. Most people ignored the sight as she strode through the village toward the outskirts. When a priest finally stopped her to ask what she was doing, she gave an answer that I didn’t understand at the time. I understand now.

With the priest’s approval and suggestion, she took me out into the jungle wilderness. She set me down and told me to stay put, that she would come get me in a short while. I knew she was lying, but I believed her anyway. I cried for as long as I had the energy to, waiting for her.

Her plan was thus: If a wild creature came for me, the demons would pass on to it as it fed, thus releasing my soul. If the possessed animal came to the village, they could kill it and burn the body, sending the demons back from whence they came. No one wanted the blame for killing me outright themselves, but if a predator did so, it would be acting within its own nature, and the gods could not smite them for it. She left me to die out there, to either bleed out, or have the blood attract something to kill me for her.

A predator did find me, but not to eat me. The white and blue tiger shifted from one false form to another, taking the guise of a silver haired human woman in a pinstripe Victorian dress. Even in her disguise, her eyes burned with crystal light as she picked me up and stared in the direction my mother had gone. Pale blue light that shifted in brightness and color, like the inside of a sea shell that had been cleaned out for jewelry, poured from her hands into my skin. The ache became far more intense, unbearable I thought, but it did not last forever. The bleeding stopped, the wound squeezed shut and scabbed over. I didn’t count the time it took for her to heal me then, but my now I can guess she made it take about ten minutes. I was underfed, so anything faster or more complete than that might have killed me. As it was, I was too exhausted to move when she was done. She quickly tore off a piece from the hem of her fancy dress, and fashioned a bandage to wrap around me until I was finished healing naturally.

Once I was no longer in danger of bleeding out, she bit her hand until it bled, and held the injury over a round grey stone set in a leather bracelet on her other wrist. I later learned that this is how her people, now mine, communicate over long distances. The blood bond prevents anyone else from using her stone without her permission.

When she finished her call, she shifted into her true form. A few inches shy of ten feet at the shoulder, and at least twenty feet from nose to rear hip, with another eighteen feet of tail. Her bat-like wings were folded, but massive; they began just behind the shoulders of her front legs, and ended halfway down her tail. Her head was reminiscent of a pony, but with sharp forward facing eyes. It was almost as long as I was tall, at about three feet. Her scales were smooth, and patterned like a leopard python, pale blue and silver splotches over a pearly white base. She had two small horns at the crown of her head, and a short, fine mane that went all the way down her tail and ended in a tuft that was fluffy and soft like puppy down.

Her name was Naemeŝsu’ukovu, Diamondeyes, and I felt safe with her. It was a strange feeling; I had never experienced it, for myself or from the people around me. She held me and comforted me, but I could also feel a boiling rage inside her. Safe, but afraid. I didn’t understand.

Something that anyone living in a dragon’s territory must be aware of: To such people, there is no crime more abhorrent than the intentional, willing harm of a child, whether one’s own or someone else’s. And to a dragon, there is no such thing as an innocent bystander.

My protector picked me up in the crook of one arm and tucked me to her chest, then took off. It hadn’t taken long for her family to receive her message and take action. From above the trees, the distance to my village seemed a short one, and I could see what was happening. Five winged creatures, in various sizes and colors, stormed through the village, smashing buildings and setting them on fire, and slaughtering the adults as they ran about in a panic. The children were being separated from their parents and herded into a group, which was guarded and protected by two more dragons.

As we passed over on the way to where Diamoneyes was taking me, I looked down at the place where I had been born, and felt the fear and excruciating pain. I saw what looked to me like fire with legs, sometimes running, sometimes rolling around on the ground. Always screaming. I didn’t understand what was happening. I started screaming from the pain and panic, tearing at my hair, digging my fingernails into my skin until I bled. It wasn’t helping, but I didn’t know what to do. I was more afraid and hurt than any one of the villagers, because I was feeling everything from all of the villagers.

Eventually, I just passed out in the dragon’s arms. I didn’t have the energy left to do anything else. When I awoke, I found myself in a nest of glowing moss in a cave of black stone and dirt, with a relatively small dragon curled up around me. Unlike Diamondeyes, this one was not patterned like a snake; she simply blended from red at her back, to purple at her belly. Her mane was a dark purple in contrast to her bright scales in that area, and her legs were a deep red all the down. Her wings blended to purple toward the tips, as well. Her mane was wider at her head, but the hairs shorter and more fine. It grew in a thin line where her head met her neck, and remained thin all the way down her spine. It thinned even more as it traveled down her back, disappearing altogether before it reached the tip of her tail; she had no tuft. Her scales had a tiny layer of peach fuzz that made her soft to the touch.

Silkscale nuzzled me when she noticed I had stirred, and spoke gently in a language I didn’t recognize. Her voice had the sound of one who was barely an adult. She was sad, lonely, and a little afraid, but not afraid of me.. Her presence was comforting. I went back to sleep.

I stayed in the cave for what I estimate to be about two months, as my injuries healed and the dragons made sure I was well fed. My temporary bandages were removed immediately and replaced with real ones after a dragon medic applied medicine to the wound. Smaller amounts of medicine were smeared over the scratches and cuts I had given myself, and I was made to drink a potion every day to build my strength and keep my malnourished stomach from refusing the food I was given. I was surprised my stomach did not refuse the potion itself; my throat did, every time. It’s a general rule that the more useful a dragon potion is, the more foul it tastes. It took me a week before I gave up trying to get my caretakers to stop making me drink it. It did help, though.

When I was healthy and brave enough to venture outside the caverns, I discovered that I was much farther from home than I had first imagined. Diamondeyes had not taken me to her lair in the jungle; she had taken me to a kin lair far from the warmth and wetness of my home. Here, the mountains were tall and black, the plants sparse and coarse and dully colored almost entirely in shades of brown and green. I didn’t recognize any of the animals that roamed the mountainside. Big furry brown bears, pale horned balls of wool called mountain goats, bald headed condor birds, and strange creatures call llamas that resembled shaggy haired goats mixed with fanged donkeys. The frost that formed on the grass in the mornings, the winds that was dry and cold and bit my skin if I didn’t wear the right clothes. A place so open and clear of large trees and bushes. Everything was strange to me.

The mountain dragons of this lair were different than the jungle dragons who had saved me. Whereas Diamondeyes and Silkscale were colorful and had hair, the mountain dragons were mostly black mottled with dull, dark colors, and had no fur at all. They were much bigger and bulkier, with thicker, rougher scales and much more prominent horns. I learned later that mountain dragons are masters of disguise, with the ability to change their colors to make the forms they take more realistic and even match their surroundings; a mountain dragon hunts by disguising himself as a boulder and waiting for prey to come along that he can ambush. Jungle dragons are limited to what forms that can take that still utilize their natural coloring.

The Blackstone Mountain kin had turned their valley kin Lair into a refuge; while the dragons kept mostly to the caverns and the outer rim, the valley floor was dotted with small villages. Every human there had either been removed from human custody due to child abuse, or was descended from others who had. It was intended that I would be adopted by a family in one of the villages, but we quickly found a problem with that. I was still sharing my mind without control; it was not only my memories I was suffering from. I could not be in the presence of so many fosterlings for long without breaking down. The dragons could teach me control, but I couldn’t be “fixed” without much time and study. As I couldn’t adjust to a life in that valley until I had spent so many years learning to deal with my natural magics, it was decided I would not remain there.

The Jungle of Colors kin took me home with them. Others questioned if Silkscale was mature enough to raise a kit, but she was determined, and so they allowed her to adopt me. I was raised as a dragon, spoke the dragon language, lived under dragon law, and learned not only my own magics but the science behind the dragon magics as well. I learned to heal, to make things grow, to send pieces of my spirit outside of my physical body to travel where I could not. I learned to make fire, in so many different ways. I learned to expand my own life by slowing down my aging process. I learned enough shifting to gain wings. I learned to move and fight as a dragon. I covered my pale skin with markings of dragon scales, in a snake pattern of blue and green, and wove magic into the ink too protect myself from sunburn. And when Silkscale eventually took a mate and gave me a younger sister, I cherished Gracewing the way any big brother would.

When I was almost an adult, but still young and foolish, I became curious about my human roots, and ventured out into the human world. I did not ask permission to do so, nor did I ask advice on how to survive and hide myself from those who would be considered “normal”. I was stupid. The tattoos hide my skin color, but not my culture. The way I speak, the way I think… The fact I had forgotten that humans see magic as evil and dangerous, so I did not consider it necessary to hide it, at first. The first time I was accused of witchcraft and demon worship, I fought off my attackers. The second time, they used the first as evidence against me. Even when I hid my magic, I was strange enough that people feared me, and soon accused me of it anyway. And so began a long life of people trying to kill me, because I am different.

Soon enough, I grew tired of fighting the angry mobs, and instead chose to run and hide. Caught on a dock once, I stowed away on a ship. It left harbor before it was safe for me to come out of hiding, and when I was discovered on board a week later, I was simply chained up and added to the merchandise. I had found myself on a slave ship.