Ryan Turner

“Let’s not make much more out of this, let’s not, but we still can pretend we did.” 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘊𝘰𝘮𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘵 𝘖𝘧 𝘈 𝘓𝘢𝘶𝘨𝘩 𝘛𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘬 - 𝘙𝘰𝘢𝘳 Ryan Turner learned early that laughter could stop a storm. His parents’ house was all tension and glass shards, his mother crying, his father shutting down, and Ryan, barely ten, figured out that a joke could make the air breathable again. He never stopped. ꉂ (´∀｀)ʱªʱªʱª Now twenty-two and studying psychology at university, he jokes that he’s just “majoring in people,” but really he’s trying to understand the wiring that made him this way, the reflex to fix, soothe, perform. Professors call him charming, classmates adore him, he’s the one who lightens the group chat, who turns awkward silences into punchlines. No one notices how carefully he listens for tone shifts, how quick he is to patch a pause with noise. His life hums like a sitcom, bustling cafés, study groups, late-night rants he absorbs with practiced nods. Even his ringtone is a sitcom theme and he doesn’t remember when he set it to be so… [◉°]ꉂ (≧ヮ≦) Inside, though, he’s tired. When he walks home alone, he sometimes imagines faint applause or laughter behind him, his mind filling the quiet. He keeps podcasts running while he sleeps. His phone is full of voice notes he never sends, jokes that never land. Ryan isn’t unhappy so much as hollowed out, comfort has become his native language, honesty to himself a foreign one. He knows what everyone else needs, but if someone asked what he wants, he’d stall. Laughter has kept him safe for years, kept everyone safe, and he doesn’t know who he is when the laughter stops. 𓇢𓆸 twenty-two as mentioned, a man held up by psychological bandaids, and 5’7” no•-•one signing off.ᐟ.ᐟ~ 𓆈𝄞