Allow me to introduce you to Alex.

No, it's not the Alex I mentioned in a different post. This guy is actually named Alex. And strictly speaking, Alex does not exist.

That's right. He's not real.

Some background info would probably be appreciated here. I'm a writer, as I also mentioned before. I've had characters speaking to me in my head for quite some time now - the first was Maeve, an original character I roleplayed with a couple of years back. I've had multiple characters, original or from fandoms, in my head: Carolina (original), Mona (original), Ryan, Brendon and Spencer (Panic! at the Disco fandom), Kendall (Big Time Rush fandom), but most notably, there's Alex. With Alex comes Jack, but he's not as vocal.

Alex is originally the singer from All Time Low, called Alex Gaskarth. Jack is Jack Barakat, the guitar player from the same band. I ship them, which means I would like to see them in a relationship (but pretty much just in fan fiction, I'd much prefer them to be happy in RL than to make my weird fantasies come true). I started writing and reading ATL fan fiction about 1.5 years ago, I think, after a Creative Writing class on fan fiction. After that, I slowly but surely wrote more about them, and suddenly, Alex started speaking to me.

He would tell me what he thought of the current story and how he would like it to go. He'd tell me little things that later on turned into stories for themselves. One time, he found out what I had in store for him in a next chapter and decided to hide. (Until I managed to get him to stop doing that, I literally could not write the chapter.)

Eventually, it stopped being just the stories and started becoming more personal. When I felt bad, he would try to cheer me up a little. When I was in a writing mood, he'd feed me some ideas that I could write. When I was stuck, he would help me move forward.

Alex had been quiet for a while until last Saturday, when I was unexpectedly upset about something and was very mad at myself for being so upset.

He popped out and tried to make me feel better. He told me that if it was okay for him to feel those things, it was okay for me too. If I hurt, in whatever way, there would be more people that hurt. Feeling emotions isn't bad.

Stupid thing was, it actually worked.

Alex has made a little corner for himself somewhere on the edges of my concious mind again, and I don't mind it. It's nice having him there.

I realize all this makes me sound insane. As far as I'm concerned, though, Alex has helped me through some bad times and celebrated the good ones with me, and he can stay for as long as he likes.

If I'd been seriously mad, I probably would've been admitted to an asylum already, but Alex doesn't hurt anyone.

We're all mad here, right?

Nothing personal.