#i feel like by the time this posts (the 22nd i think; queuing it on the 17th) the status quo will have changed irreversibly

[abstractgart]

"reduced, yet a canvas eternal", Monday, ‎15 ‎August ‎2022, ‏‎3:09pm

ohhhhhh fuzzy pixels i love it when squares but then they get vaguely un-squared. there's like three different homestuck references i could make about this one Gart and if you can figure out what all three of them are you will get a cookie! promise ;3

[clevercatchphrase]

Cheers to a decade

My blog is 10 years old today. I have some thoughts.

On Januray 22nd, 2015, I made this tumblr blog. I remember it being my second semester of my senior year in college and feeling lost and depressed in my dorm room. Despite being in the class of 2015, I had technically graduated the winter prior, having come in to college with enough AP credits from high school to be ahead a semester. I remember not being ready to become an "official" adult yet. Despite having a degree, I didn't feel like I had enough choices in my future, so I stayed an extra year (3 semesters) and got a second degree before finally just being too sick of college life to stay there any longer.

I made this blog to practice art, but in truth, I think it was to distract myself from existential dread of being bottle necked into an occupation I didn't want with little to no choice of upward movement. I can't remember my exact thoughts, but I have a strong feeling it was along the lines of "if I can't get a job I like with my entomology degree, then I will practice art and try my luck as a freelance artist!" Not that freelance is any easier than an hourly paid 9 to 5, but at least it let me feel like I had more options.

It's so surreal scrolling back to that very first year. I posted a lot more frequently and did a lot more doodles and sketches and figure drawings back then. I didn't care about scheduling or queuing posts. I saw a cool tutorial? Neat, I'm reblogging this right now. just pumped out a 2 minute doodle of an animal, and it's going up on the blog immediately. I did more art challenges. Heck, I made a 50 day art challenge for homestuck and DID it! I made my very first long form song comic less than a month after creating this blog. It was for kingdom hearts set to the song "king" by Lauren Aquilina (which was almost certainly inspired by the LoZ song comic made by caffeineandcarpaltunnel set to the same song 2 years prior. (and I don't even play loz, I just liked the song)). I can't help but question myself; "where did all this motivation go?" "Where did all that passion go?" "Now I only post one piece of art a week and queue all the other stuff in november only." (Well, I didn't start doing that last thing until 2022, so I guess I can always revert my neurotic habits). But then I have to remember that until the summer of 2016, I didn't have a job. I didn't have bills. I lived in dorm rooms and off of college loans that funded my meal plan. Any time I wasn't studying or hanging out with other Cepheids (shout out to the 3 of you who know what that means) I was undoubtedly on the internet, enjoying what the 2010's web had to offer.

Can you believe youtube hadn't officially been around for 10 years at that point? musical.ly hadn't merged with TikTok yet because TikTok hadn't even been created in 2015. Vine still existed. This blog is even older than Undertale's official release.

I can't help but think of my life in "chunks" or "eras", some based on where I lived at the time, some based on the state of the world at the time, but a majority of it based on the media I was obsessed with at that time. (For example, 1998 to 2002 I refer to as the "hawaii era" because my family was military and we were stationed in Hawaii.) Shorter eras can also exist within bigger eras, like 2016 to 2020 is my zoo era, because I was a part time zookeeper, but it exists within my undertale era, which is still ongoing (this hyperfixation has a choke hold on me). So whenever I am given a date, I cross-reference it with what era of my life it occurred in, comparing it to my mental state and what was happening with my life. This blog started in my homestuck era (which went from early 2011 to late 2015) and it fucking showsssssss.

Another example; some of the earliest art on this blog was for Kingdom Hearts, because I am a KH fan. KH3 released in 2019. My blog had just turned 4 years old THREE days prior in 2019. KH3 will be SIX years old three days from today. 2019 was before the pandemic. I was still at my zoo job. Ghost switch wasn't even 1 year old yet. It's this kind of mental math that I am constantly doing for everything all the time whenever I have a date to compare to. Why do I do this? I have no clue. To measure up progress or advancements? To contrast what I've accomplished in that same amount of time versus what others have achieved? I don't know, but I've always done it and I will never stop. The endless forward march of time bewitches me so in this way.

Looking at the years and dates, remembering how it overlapped with my time in college and the memes of the early 2010s, which reminds me of my college era (fall 2011 to spring 2016) which brings up a whole well of other memories, like the world ending in 2012, the let's players I'd watch because I didn't have a gaming console or tv in my dorm, the basketball concessions I'd volunteer at to pay for my ticket to go to the student-run convention in the spring, the libraries and computer labs and dining halls, and shitty dorm room thermostats in winter and it's blaring fire alarms that would go off at 3 am because people microwaved popcorn wrong, and the time it rained so hard on campus that the basement hangout zone flooded.

Man... this whole thing got melancholic. I thought it would be nostalgic, but now it feels like I'm doing an elephant walk for my own blog (again, shout out to the three of you who knows what that even means). I don't know if my past self would recognize or approve of who I am now. And yet, I also can't say i've changed all that much. I still live at home with my family because I can't afford a house of my own. I still keep up with the youtube channels I subscribed to in 2013. I still check in on the webcomics that went on indefinite hiatus in 2010. I still use the same deviantart account I made in 2007. I still log on to my neopets account that I made in 2004.

This blog has been with me through a third of my life.

I don't know what I'll do when I finish Ghost Switch. (which will still take me 6 more years to finish, don't worry, I'm not going anywhere soon). Maybe i'll go back to posting shitty little doodles that I drew quickly in 2 minutes to practice figure drawing. Maybe I'll finally learn to code and make that visual novel I've been brainstorming since 2017. Maybe I'll make more (shorter) webcomics with my own OCs. Maybe I'll sit down and actually seriously think about professionally editing and querying a few of those novel drafts I wrote for nanowrimo, which I've also done for 10 years now, too. Maybe I'll come out of the closet and finally embrace the fact that I am a furry and draw nothing but anthro wolves and dogs.

Last year, I pulled out 10 old composition notebooks that I used as diaries for the years 2005 to 2010. This covered the beginning of seventh grade for me, to the end of 11th grade. Rereading these journals was simultaneously the most hysterical things I've ever written as well as the most depressing shit I've ever written, but that's just middle and high school for ya, babe. Still, I bring it up because when I look back on the past, I never know what I will think or feel about the past in hindsight. Seeing so many informative and hilarious posts from those early years fills me with great joy and also great sorrow, because those times are gone now. The internet landscape has changed so much, tumblr included. I do wish I could go back, sometimes. To go back to being so care-free, to relive those highs fandoms gave me when everything was new and exciting and happening Right Now, to be less stressed out about the state of the world, to laugh at stupid nonsensical rage comic memes.

But I also want to stay right here. To be proud of how far I've come, to appreciate what I've accomplished so far, and to remind myself that Today is good, too. I don't want to waste all my time wishing to go back to the past, because in 10 years from now, I'm going to wish I could come back to Now.

Do I even think tumblr will still be around in 2035? Probably. We're kinda like a roach like that, and also i've got some posts queued for 2033 that i need to see go live for The Bit.

Anyway, to end this reflection on a more positive note, thanks for hanging around for so long. We're all stuck on this glue trap together, but I'm glad I'm with you. These last 10 years have been interesting and wild, both on and off the internet, and I hope the thrills don't stop anytime soon.

[the59er]

21 Oct 2024

21st October 2024, Monday Listening: My Name is Jonas, Weezer

Woke up at 430am just to try and finish my meeting minutes and I managed to finally start it. Cleaned up the rest at work. I just found out that JT's on leave and not even in country! We had lunk at tanglin and kind kones afterwards which was not very kind to me because I suffered a stomach upset afterwards, even until I reached home.

But I did stop by grocers to get milk for my coffee and some chips because why not. The day has been very quiet and I had this heavy heart feeling throughout the day. I hate that feeling because more often than not it always coincides with some impending doom.

Anyway, did a funny take on today's Inktober day 21: Rhino 🦏

--

22 Oct 2024

22nd October 2024, Tuesday Listening: The Zephyr Song, RHCP

Lunk was famima oden again. Shopped for cans of crep protect for myself and my brother as part of his bday gift hehe. We love shoes! Random pics of the day;

Another comical take on today's Inktober day 22: Camp!

--

23 Oct 2024

23rd October 2024, Wednesday Listening: Sunset Paradise, Low Light

Today I used 2121's personal shopper service by requesting him go to Lush to buy the perfumes I wanted for myself and gege for his birthday! For gege I bought "The Bee's Knees" just because of the name 😂 But my brother truly is the bee's knees!

The sunset on the way to no.21 was beautiful..

Dins was this new taco place that I saw HH shared on the gram, I thought it was nearby 2121's but it turned out it to be 30mins away.. Tastewise not bad, but we've had better. Plus it's a bit too far from our usual places so I don't think we'd be going there again, unless for some reason we end up at the area. I've also forgotten the name of the place, so it definitely was not memorable at all.

Inktober day 23: Rust

--

24 Oct 2024

24th October 2024, Thursday Listening: Such Great Heights, The Postal Service

Office laptop refused to detect my home network so I had no choice but to go to the office in the a.m. 😠 Also today was fire drill day 😩 Thankfully it was fun enough because this time around I got the chance to actually watch the drill because I queued right upfront so I witnessed a person acting to faint. It was so realistic, he deserves a best actor award! Went home at noon but not before stopping by Shell for a Boost and snacks. I am currently on my All Berry Bang phase 😋

The book I ordered from Kino last week just arrived! Can't wait to get a crack on it, I love the smell of new books!

A little bit of a serious take for my Inktober day 24: Expedition,

--

25 Oct 2024

25th October 2024, Friday Listening: 1901, Phoenix

Dins with gege! Passed him the birthday pressies 😄 My brother is on top of my favorite people list for sure. It sucks that he has to spend his birthday month crippled because of the fall earlier this month. Boooo. Hope he gets well soon and back to driving.

Inktober day 25: Scarecrow 🤡

--

26 Oct 2024

26th October 2024, Saturday - Happy birthday to Gege! 🎂 Listening: Notion, KoL

Gege was shopping for shoes and I added into his cart a pair of GS Cortez lol I couldn't resist plus Id like to make content on sizing comparison between "adult" Cortez and GS Cortez like I did with my Adidas content that I just posted today 😬

Inktober day 26: Camera!

--

27 Oct 2024

27th October 2024, Sunday Listening: On the Road Again, Willie Nelson

Today went to Dolly's because I was craving, and as per usual I eat too much when it comes to dim sum 😅 Did a bit of groceries at Ikano before ending the night with Boost!

Inktober day 27: Road 😂

Can't believe I've actually made this far with Inktober attempt, 4 more days and we are donezo!

[melsie-sims]

Check in tag!

Thanks @zosa95 for the tag! It’s been a long while since I’ve done something like this! 💙

Why did you choose your URL? My IRL nickname is Mel and my middle initial is C. Combined, it sounds like Mel-sie. Those of you that are pronouncing it with a hard S are technically wrong but that’s okay. I think most of you probably imagine it as Mel-Zee at this point. 😂

How long have you been on Tumblr? I've had this specific Simblr account since May 22nd 2020, so almost two years now. I had a personal trash tumblr before that I’ve since abandoned. I’m sure it’s been over five years since I originally joined the platform. 

Do you have a queue tag? All of my posts are queued by default. I don’t... just post. The only ones that aren’t are reblogs and “just chatting” posts.

Why did you start your blog in the first place? I wanted to share my sims content, write stories and meet other simmers. Mostly I wanted a place to dump all of my sims screenshots.

Why did you choose your icon/pfp? I really need to update it since it isn’t autumn anymore... but Winona is one of my favorite sims and I thought an orange/autumn theme would look cute. That was last September. 

Why did you choose your header? Same as above!

What's your post with the most notes? OK I’m really dumb, but how do you find this out?? I did go through the last couple weeks’ of posts and found this one had double my usual notes so...

How many mutuals do you have? I follow a lot of people and have a little over 500 followers so... I’m sure some of you I probably follow back?

How many followers do you have? 554! 

How many people do you follow? 493!

Have you ever made a shitpost? Nothing to cause drama/target other simmers... but I have whined about EA a few times. 😂

How often do you use Tumblr? It varies, but lately pretty much every single day. I open the app whenever I’m bored to look at posts... and add to my queue after every play session... so sometimes daily? Sometimes every few days? 

Did you have a fight/argument with another blog once? Noooo. I’m not good with conflict so I’m very grateful for this! I’ve been fortunate not to get any trolls or haters in my comments section so far. 

How do you feel about 'you need to reblog this' posts? I don’t really know what those posts are? If they’re the posts asking for money for so-and-so reasons, usually involving very personal life struggles... then I ignore those... sorry. I don’t reblog a lot. If I like a story/challenge/series I’ll reblog the first post and link to the story/challenge/series’ tag. I also reblog some cc.

Do you like tag games? YES! I love them and definitely don’t do them often enough! I do take a while to reply sometimes though... but definitely don’t hesitate to tag me! I don’t mind at all! 💙💙

Do you like ask memes? Probably? I don’t know what those are. I know, I’m a terrible member of the community. I don’t know anything! 

Which of your mutuals do you think is tumblr famous? I don’t really keep track of notes... but lately I think @eurosimmer has been doing pretty amazing!? 

Do you have a crush on a mutual? Pffft wouldn’t you like to know. 😏

And that’s it!! I’m tagging @cyazurai, @gutsberries, @witheringsims, @eurosimmer, @micrathene-w & @katmk36. Feel free to ignore this if you’ve already been tagged or don’t feel like answering. 

[morallygreyprompts]

Time to Ramble, cry, and bite a lot of bullets... send help.

Okay, I need to like write this up so I know what the heck is going on and you guys may as well know too. I’m one busy bee and I’ll be crawling into December.

First off, I will be participating in Whumptober, so if you liked the bad things happen bingo then keep an eye on my whump page, Tenmillionwhumperflies. I can’t do it on this page because my asks will take me to the 22nd October, longer if I get continuation requests. I’ll be getting all of those written up and queued before the first of October so they’re done, swoosh, out the way. That page is a lot quieter than this so I thought I’d let you know.

So that’s me super busy until the end of October on two Side blogs. Then without rest, I’m gonna get smacked in the face by good old NaNoWriMo. I think I’m gonna attempt to get the first of my Mask Story done otherwise I’ll just keep putting it off. Head over to MorallyGreyWrites if you want any updates and relatable memes about my writing. I think today I’m going to show you the face claims for a couple of main characters that I’ve been working on for the first story and motivate myself a bit with the planning.

I’ll have some smaller stories going on in the background when I feel like it, but I won’t put them on my Wattpad until they’re completely done.

Finally, I hear you cry with intense interest, “But Georgia, you overworked maniac, what about November if you’re doing NaNoWriMo?”

Well, my wonderful little minions, I’m going to give my mind free reign and be a rebel and do InkTober in November. Posts will be smaller since I’ll be writing 1,666K words a day for the story, and doing college work which I know is going to be an absolute MESS with me and my class having to organise and carry out an entertainment event.

So yes, I’m going to be doing a lot of work. Even then I’m not done. In December I’m BETA hunting for my crime story I wrote a year ago. For some reason, I just can’t edit it even though I know it needs edits. I think by January I’m going to be bald with le stress ^^’

Like my stuff and want to support everything I’ll be doing? Then maybe consider buying me a Kofi? Ko-fi.com/morallygrey. It would be really appreciated.

[letsdiscoverkitty]

Friday 22nd September 2017

I AM ALIVE! And I have made it through freshers (well pretty much made it through, I don’t think the weekend really counts). At the beginning of the week I was absolutely dreading it and I will admit that there were times when I really just wanted to throw in the towel and leave/not move from my room, however I am pleased to say that I have made it through and I am still here. Now, where was I? I think last I posted about was on Monday, so let’s have a think about what happened since then... 

Ah yes, Monday was a blank day with one of our fresher’s events in the evening. C and I were not feeling too up for a night out but we thought we would give it a go and head along to it, especially as it was only 2 minutes around the corner. We tried our hardest to get there a little *late* however even that didn’t help as when we did arrive it was absolutely dead. I am not a nightclub fan and it was not my scene in the slightest however I did have a bit of a laugh with C and we both decided to leave after a while as it was getting a bit too, erm, raucous. I don’t usually drink, however I did have one vodka and diet.coke as at the beginning it was incredibly quiet, cringey and just awful. As more people arrived it did get a little better and the music was okay however it took a turn for the worse after another hour and the dance floor became a mosh pit. I have decided that I do not like night clubs. I tried in York and I tried here but I just don’t enjoy it. There were so many sweaty drunk 18 year old boys (and girls) all pushed together in a small space...definitely not my scene. When C and I came back to our flat we sat in the kitchen and chatted for maybe an hour which was really lovely before heading off to bed. 

Tuesday rolled around pretty swiftly and although I had already purchased a ticket for an early event, I decided not to go as it was quite a long walk away and I was extremely tired. Instead I headed over to Wills to register around 10:30am before returning to the flat and going back out for a few talks in the bio-med building in the afternoon. Over the next 3 hours I got to meet my personal tutor (who is really lovely), had a talk from the Neuroscience programme director, IT services and Health & Safety in the lab. Tuesday evening was spent very quietly in the flat after quite a late night the night before, this time with Harry Potter and the philosopher’s stone, which can I just say, is the perfect freshers night in my opinion.

Wednesday saw me back at the biomed buildings where we collected our books, clickers and any other information about our course. T and I walked around a bit with a group of people from Neuroscience afterwards just chatting, before we headed back to our accommodation. T had persuaded C and I to book tickets for bowling that evening (it was booked out by our accommodation), which was really fun although I haven’t bowled in a long time. We were all feeling a bit tired however we decided to go out for our second evening as the event on our wristbands was at a bar/pub not a nightclub! It was a little walk away and the rain didn’t help but T, C and I had a nice few hours sitting and chatting and realising how much we have in common. I didn’t drink but I felt really comfortable not doing so and yeah I just had a really nice evening :)

Thursday was yet again another event at my school, however I went to meet Meg (I don’t know if you will all remember meg but she had a tumblr a while ago and we have been close for a number of years now) for coffee as she is just about to start her 3rd year at uni, which was so lovely and nice. The event was mainly a talk about ‘positive impact” which is a mental health/wellbeing thing that the Uni is running all year with different ‘themes’ each month which is kind of cool. The month that my school is running for everyone is the arts and crafts one which is really exciting. After that we had a ‘bonding activity’ followed by a campus tour/walkabout from 2nd and 3rd years to show us where our lectures will be. At 4pm we then had our ‘welcome ceremony’ which was in Wills and was a fancy event with talks from the Vice Chancellor of the University and a few other people. We also got a Bristol University badge to commemorate the start of our studies which was nice. In the evening we headed out to yet another event hosted by our accommodation, this time LASER FUSION. I think the last time I played laser quest was when I was about 12! It was a good laugh, although very tiring. We played two games, the first was a solo game, followed by a team based one. We were there for about an hour and it was quite nice to bond with a few more people and we have already decided to stay in and not go to the big nightclub event (what a surprise), so T came up to our flat for a chat and we watched grand designs followed by 2 episodes of don’t tell the bridge which was hilarious. 

Friday, today, was our fresher’s fair and let me tell you, I was not ready for the amount of flyers and free bags that was thrust in our direction. C and I had decided to head over earlier, which later on we were so glad about because as we left it was getting extremely busy and people were queuing for quite a long way back. In all honesty I can’t even remember what I have signed up to now, I think I did a few sport ones (including Quidditch!) just to try out for fun as well as the Neuroscience society and some mental health ones. Oh and we got free GLITTER FACE PAINT! I’m glad we went but by the time we got back this afternoon, I was exhausted. I think it took about an hour to sort through all the bags and free things that I was given. The best purchase of the day has to be a Bristol University hoodie (with a free t shirt!), and tonight we have planned another night in, this time with Harry potter and the Chamber of Secrets!

So that’s a little round up of my fresher’s week so far, not your ‘average’ one but I for one am glad that it is nearly over. It has been a funny/odd week, my emotions have been all over the place and I haven’t really felt myself however I have pushed my anxiety in so many ways and spoken to more people than I can count. Food wise things have been hard, I’m not going to lie but yeah, I won’t elaborate any further. I have a GP appointment booked for next Wednesday (S texted me to see how things were going and also to talk about the STEPS referral so hopefully things will get sorted soon). I am hoping that as things begin to calm down a little, it will get a little more manageable as I will get into a bit more of a routine. This week has just been very hectic/crazy with timings all over the place. I am incredibly nervous/worried about starting my course and not being able to keep up but I am just going to take it one day at a time. I am in quite a lot (16-20 hours each week) but that is probably quite a good thing and I am going to try to make contact with my personal tutor within the next few weeks just to meet with him and have a bit of a chat. Anyway, I hope you are all well, sorry for being a bit absent recently, I will be back posting soon :) x

[arianasgrnds]

Manchester Arena Attack - My Experience

On Monday 22nd May 2017, a bomb was detonated inside the foyer of Manchester Arena following an Ariana Grande concert that I had attended. This is my story.

For around 3/4 years I have been desperate to see Ariana in concert, but I never had gotten the chance to, until she announced her Dangerous Woman Tour which included a date in Manchester, approximately 44 miles away from my hometown Leeds. I ordered my tickets on the bkstg pre sale on 26th November 2016 and the countdown started until the day my dream was going to come true, none of my friends were fans of her so I begged my boyfriend to come with me, he knew how much it meant to me to see her and agreed to come with me. 

We decided to go there for the day and explore Manchester a bit and get food before we went to the concert, we had previously visited Manchester in September to see McFly on their Anthology Tour and only got to explore a little of Manchester, but we fell in love with the city. We booked tickets to go to a Cat Cafe in the afternoon, but other than that our plan was just to walk around and go into a few shops. 

The night before the concert I was up until around 1am panicking because I had a gut feeling that something was going to go wrong, however I suffer from anxiety and panic attacks so I just put it down to that and I was already anxious about taking the train there. As we were waiting for the bus into the city centre to get our train I told my boyfriend about how I was feeling through the night and that I was panicking something was going to go wrong such as losing our tickets, missing our train, getting stranded etc and I was scared I was going to have a panic attack as I had had one at McFly in September and when we went to see You Me At Six in October 2016, but he assured me everything would be fine and we went to get our train. 

When we arrived in Manchester we were both excited to explore and go to the Cat Cafe, we went into a few shops and walked around the city centre then went to the Cat Cafe. After the Cat Cafe we went to Pizza Hut for tea, there was a group of girls on a table next to us wearing Ariana merchandise and I began to get suuuuper excited that I was finally going to see her in a few hours. 

We went from Pizza Hut straight to the arena and queued to get into the venue, doors were supposed to open at 6:30pm but they were running late so we got in around 7:30pm, got some soft drinks, went to the toilet and sat in our seats. At this point I started feeling really anxious, my way of dealing with this was to get up and walk to and from the toilets just outside of the entrance near our block, I did this several times until Victoria Monet and BIA came on, still feeling quite anxious whilst waiting for Ariana’s countdown to start. 

Ariana’s 10 minute countdown video started playing and I felt a lot better due to the excitement of finally seeing an artist I had looked up to for so long, I had been counting down for months to this moment that I was going to be in the same room as her. She came onstage and I was ecstatic, she was amazing, my favourite part was Knew Better part 2/Forever Boy, I sung so loud and was so so so happy and in awe of her, she hit every note effortlessly whilst dancing perfectly in high heels, how? I don’t know. 

Her last song was Dangerous Woman, she said goodbye etc then over the speakers they started playing Dangerous Woman as people started to exit the arena. I had bought a DWT hoodie and shirt that they had put into a JD bag, before the show my boyfriend thought to push it under his seat so it was safe, when he stood up as she came on stage, he accidentally pushed the bag further under his seat so we were trying to get it out. We were due to be getting the 11:30pm train from Manchester Victoria back to Leeds so we had around an hour before we had to get our train, we had planned to wait in the foyer where McDonalds etc was, the foyer where the bomb was detonated. 

We finally got my merch out and started walking up the stairs of our block (block 105) to exit when the terrorist detonated the bomb. Under my feet I felt this vibration so powerful that I had never felt anything like, the arena which was previously filled with excited chatter, happiness and laughter from a room full of fans who had just seen their favourite artist went silent, but only for a second, then it went loud again, but this time it wasn’t excited chatter anymore, it was panic. Everyone started screaming and when I looked above us there were people jumping off of the balconies to try and get out of the arena, my reaction was to grab my boyfriends hand and run after saying to him “we need to run or we’re going to die” 

Security didn’t know what to do, but they were asking us not to run down the stairs, there were children screaming and crying, their parents trying to console them whilst hiding their own fear. We ran to the fire exit and through some corridors (this part is a blur to me) when we came to a stand still. I asked a member of staff what had happened and got told it was “just a tactical throw”, I also overheard someone saying a speaker had blown, but I thought it was either a shooting or a bomb. There was a strange smell of burning which I can’t describe, I had never smelt a burning smell like that before. 

A girl in front of us was covered in other people’s blood whilst a crowd of people surrounded her asking if she was okay, my boyfriend asked her if she was okay and what had happened but she was too in shock to reply. We then started running again before coming to a stop once again, I looked to the right of us and there was a middle aged man holding a white Ariana shirt to his head, the shirt was red with blood and there was a puddle of blood at his feet as well as blood on the floor around him. I looked back in front of me and still holding my boyfriends hand began running again until we finally managed to get out of the arena. 

We didn’t know which way it was to Manchester Victoria as we had come through a fire exit, everyone was panicking and screaming in fear as an announcement played over speakers telling us to evacuate the building. My boyfriend asked a security guard which way Manchester Victoria was and we ran that direction until we were outside Manchester Victoria, which had gone into lockdown. We stood outside Manchester Victoria trying to calm down and figure out what to do as we tried calling my Dad, because even if our train wasn’t cancelled, we didn’t want to get it and I was desperate to see my Dad. My phone wasn’t ringing at first so my boyfriend tried to call him on his phone, after a few calls to the house phone and his mobile he answered and he said to my Dad “something has happened in Manchester and we need you to come and get us” it was at this point it sank in what had actually happened and I broke down. 

I spoke to my Dad and he said he was on his way and to send him the postcode for Manchester Victoria, I googled it and sent it over to him, then a group of armed police ran past us shouting at everyone to move so I suggested we ran to the nearest hotel. I asked a policeman if there was any safe place we could go and he replied “no, you need to get out of the city, now!” So we started running again, we didn’t even know where we were going because the times I had been to Manchester Arena in the past my parents had taken me there and picked me up, we just ran. 

We ended up at the Travelodge hotel we had stayed at when we came to see McFly for 3 days in September, the lobby was packed with people trying to get last minute rooms because they were stranded and people just wanting a safe place like we were. We sent my Dad the address, sat in the bar area and got drinks as everyone crowded around the tv to watch the news because at this point, you couldn’t escape what had happened because it was on every news channel. Breaking news. I was in the middle of something that tv and radio channels all over the world had stopped everything to cover. On the news it said 19 was dead and 50 something were injured, everyone in the lobby started crying again and holding those close to them, when a little girl ran into the lobby who had gotten separated from her Mum and sister. This girl looked around 10 years old and it broke my heart because she was one of thousands of other children her age and younger who were at the concert that night. 

I checked my phone and had messages from hundreds of people asking if I was okay, people offering to come and get me and my boyfriend too, the support that we were offered was so overwhelming. People were opening up their homes for those stranded, taxi drivers offering free lifts home to as far as Liverpool and Sheffield, hotels opening up their lobbies for victims and survivors and looking after children that had gotten separated from the adults they were with. 

After what felt like hours and hours, my Dad called us letting us know he was in Manchester but couldn’t get to us because all of the roads had been blocked off into the city centre, thanks to police we managed to finally find him around half an hour later of walking around, as soon as I saw him I ran up to him and hugged him tighter than I ever have done before. He was still in his pyjamas because he couldn’t get dressed properly he was rushing so much to get to us. We got in the car and I cried the whole way home, then sat up until 5am watching the death toll go up. For about a week after it happened I became obsessed with checking the news for updates to a point where I was waking up several times during the night to check.

Since it happened I have nightmares and flashbacks every night, even after over a month, so I’m hoping that this post will help me because this is the first time I’ve fully shared my story. I’m scared to click post, but it’s something I need to do. I think about the victims and their familes every day and probably will do for the rest of my life.

We were given free tickets to One Love Manchester, my Dad took us so we could leave at any point, but we ended up staying until the end. Once we got inside I was fine, but leaving I started to have flashbacks of that night and panicked. People passing by, complete strangers, even stopped to ask if I was okay, everyone was so united and looking after each other. 

One Love Manchester was so important because it helped me, my boyfriend and thousands of others that experienced that night heal. I’m so proud of every person that returned to go to One Love Manchester and of course, of Ariana, who is such a brave and strong woman, her strength inspires me. I loved her so much before this experience, but she means so much more to me now than she did. Her concert was one of the best/worst nights of my life, but I won’t let it stop me going to concerts, concerts have been my happy place for as long as I can remember and the next time she tours I won’t hesitate to buy tickets, I’m going to get meet and greet and squeeze her to tightly. We can’t let hate win.