Character Development.

I have always felt a deep, emotional  connection towards characters I admire and idolise. When I was a kid, suffering from nightmares on a near regular basis, I learnt to fall asleep imagining I was someone else, somewhere else. At the time, it was always Peter Pan in Neverland. As I grew up it became the Doctor, somewhere fantastic. Sherlock Holmes, in his rooms in Baker Street, Sirius Black in the Gryffindor tower.

Recently it became Bones on the Enterprise, trying to catch some sleep between shifts.

I used to play games in school, before I moved to my current forced home habitat, where I was always the Doctor in my group, or Freddie from Scooby-Doo (we were probably eight years old, and I stand by that Freddie is the best in the gang, I loved him). I kept up my role as the Time Lord when me and my best mate used to play in the quarries near my house just a few years ago. We created entire worlds for our versions of these characters, entire plots.

The point of this nostalgia is that being my heroes has forever been a passion of mine. It's why I love dressing up, why I never turn down an opportunity to write stories about them when it is offered to me. A couple of weeks ago I got involved with a bit of verbal sparring with my friend Ivan because he can do a passable Bones accent, coming from the same state, and it was one of the best spent hours I can remember not including all my time with Moony obvisly.

As well as that, I feel like the characters deserve this level of commitment. You can ask anyone, I'm incredibly invested in minor characters as well as the main heroes. Colin Creevey and Oliver Wood from Harry Potter being prime examples. I feel like they don't get enough attention but there's so much about them that can be explored. What's Colin's home life like? Is his dad the kind of muggle that is just as excited and baffled by the wizarding world as he is, or is he mostly confused by it? Did he buy Colin that old camera or has he always been interested in photography? And where's his mum? Other than Dennis, does he have siblings that might also have magical blood and what side did that blood come from? And what the hell is Dennis really like? Okay, maybe that's more than anyone has ever really wondered about him, but it matters to me because there seems to be so much there to learn.

To some people, characters are just there to find attractive or to watch without any real investment. But to me, the only time I'll ever feel satisfied with my emotions towards a character is when I can be them. Until I know them like I know myself.

It is because of this that I write as them, dress up as them, impersonate them, why we got the Star Trek video game so that we could be Jim and Spock fighting of the Gorn and saving the galaxy. And even though we completed it yesterday, we're going to play it again.

I guess the reason I'm writing this isn't to go on about my childhood, or to give you all a better insight as to the kind of person I am, because I hope that comes across with all my posts, given that I try my best to be as honest and personal as I can.

It's because some characters deserve more recognition. Some people need to better understand just how complex characters can be in well-written narratives.

This started because of a conversation I had with Ivan today, regarding our personal portrayals and thoughts towards Leonard "Bones" McCoy and Mr Spock. I hope he doesn't mind me sharing this, but it pretty much sums up what I have been trying to say this whole time. And is one of the reasons he means so much to me.

'The characters mean a lot to me. I get attached. We sit in my head and share secrets and life stories. I like to learn them as intimately as I would any real person, because they deserve to be portrayed as the round, full, complex characters they are. They're supposed to be people, after all, and people are so much more than what you can show of them in a show or a movie.'

While I'm here, this seems like a nice place to mention that this lovely guy has a blog where he's willing to write with anyone that's interested in trying it out. He's a lovely person, honestly.

It's like what my parents used to say, something that never really got away from me. They told me that I could have been an A* student, could have got into Oxford and Cambridge, if I hadn't let my obsessions rule me. But the thing is that I've never let my concentration on my studies really slip, and school just got more difficult. It's a common problem, that sixth form is always more difficult than kids expect, and we don't heed the warnings we are given. But I need the characters I love to keep me going. The amount of times I've used the incentive that 'this is what they would do', or 'what would they do' as a way to motivate me, to convince me that I'm doing the right thing. I sometimes wonder where I'd be without them.

Some people need to fall in love with characters, and to become them in order to better understand themselves. I'm just one of those people.

In which Lorcan writes about (his) sexuality using an extended metaphor of the ocean.

I’ve learnt this week that sexuality really is a very fluid thing. Of course, I was already aware of this, but I’d never felt the affects personally.

I'm one of those people that feels being open about stuff is the best way to teach others, even if I only hold that law to information about transitioning or topics related to it. But this is connected, really.

As previously mentioned, my partner visited last week for four days. As a result, I’ve learnt a hell of a lot about myself, and become more comfortable with the body I’m forced to live in until I’m able to adjust it to my liking with surgery and testosterone injections.

The thing is, I’ve lived happily for 16 years and 9 months under the term ‘asexual’. It’s something I’m comfortable with, something I was rather proud to call myself. Sure, some people see it as a problem, something that needs fixing and changing. That you should see someone. But if you are asexual, or you’re actually accepting, you know it’s no more a problem than being gay is. It’s simply an absence of sexual attraction, and still a valid sexual orientation.

I’ve had that argument a hundred times. From my family, from people who I thought were friends. The idea that it would change, that I hadn’t met the right person, or I should broaden my horizons. Really, that’s incredibly offensive, but as it turns out, they were all right. About me, at least.

I’m not about to start suggesting it’s the same for everybody. In fact, I’m adamant about the idea of people having their own lifestyles and sexualities and people leaving them alone.

I’ve become so used to the term I latched onto a few years ago to explain my (lack of) feelings, and suddenly I find myself without it, and a new way of looking at things. I’m stranded in a sea of sexual lifestyles and I don’t know which horizon to swim to. I’d feel safe, if I had my partner by my side to ground me, but she’s on the other side of a physical ocean, and though I’m set to travel there in five weeks, I currently have to struggle alone with no idea what to do with myself and a sense of loss.

It’s not a bad experience at all. It was unplanned, yes, but I learnt new things about my partner, and myself and we’re closer than ever before for the trust we’ve added to our already strong connection, and it really was a wonderful thing, but now I feel an urge to find a new column, like a riptide threatening to drag me under unless I keep myself afloat.

Titles mean very little to me, as do names, but I feel overwhelmed, raw and out of control, and it’s the only thing that I can hold onto.

Queer, perhaps, is something I’ll stick to. It’s all encompassing, it covers everything.

In the space of seven days, I learnt just how fluid life can be, and my life is better for it. But it’s a shame to feel I’m no longer part of an asexual community I once watched from afar and sometimes joined in with. I shouldn’t feel that way, since I’ve never felt a desire to get in with a heterosexual group at all, but then I was never in that area, so I don’t know what I’m missing.

People used to say ‘you’re so lucky, you’ll never get distracted when you should be working’, but now that’s changed. I’m luckier now, because I know that once I get to start Testosterone, everything will rocket, and I’d rather have an understanding of what I’m in for than get suddenly tossed overboard and be forced to sink or swim.

I suppose the point of this post is partially because I wanted to acknowledge the change in my life, but also because I wanted to really show how much things can shift massively in the space of just a few hours.

I said before that I suspected my asexuality was connected to my gender dysphoria, and I was correct in my theory. Once I became more relaxed with myself, I was able to, well, get to a point where a post like this is required. I'm happier with my skin now, even though I don't want to keep the gender I've been given. But in time, I may love my trans* body, like many others I admire. Like Buck Angel, but more on him another time, because that guy deserves his own post.

And I wouldn't have that without my partner. I wouldn't even be admitting that I am trans*. She really is amazing.

Sarah-Jane Smith says life on earth can be an adventure too, if you just know where to look, and her words have never been more true. I'm not sure this is what she meant, though. But I did always suspect her to be a lesbian, so perhaps.

This metaphor was originally just something that happened by accident. But a friend of mine I’m talking to asked if I used an ocean specifically for this topic because it’s ‘Wishy-washy-weird-and-damp’, so I’ll end with that and leave it there. Thanks Ivan.