@arkandel said in RL Anger:
“If the shooters had been wearing Abercrombie & Fitch, this wouldn’t have happened,” the administrator replied.
Shit, that brings back some memories. MU*-related, even.
At the time, I was on an all-ages game (Ghostwheel MOO). It had lots of teenagers who could admit they were teenagers (unlike other games where there were still piles of teenagers, but they couldn't admit it, and thus couldn't talk about this).
And just like now... hey, this hobby has a lot of oddballs. Always has, always will. Almost universally harmlessly odd oddballs.
Hearing about what people were going through day to day as all of this unfolded, directly, from teens all over the country in a 'safe space' for oddballs was... I actually don't have words for it. I have words for every fucking thing, and I just don't. Not for that.
It's not like I was way older, either. Early 20s. Things that had been actual assignments for me in 8th grade were now getting people I knew arrested in their teens. (Our 8th grade honors English class had four sections: comedy, theater, horror, and sci-fi. Our assignments for each quarter were to write a long-form joke, team up with a few fellow students and do a scene from 'A Midsummer Night's Dream', write a short horror story, and build an alien world(1).) I know someone threatened with expulsion and required psychological examination and so on for writing a horror short story at his teacher's request, knowing he was a huge fan of Stephen King, and that he was an extraordinarily talented writer. Not based on the content, just that he'd written a horror story... when asked. I just... there aren't words. There aren't.
It was one of those moments when the world more or less changed over night, and not for the better.
(1) ...maybe I should have clued in back then on the wordy when most people were handing in worlds on three hand-written pages and mine was over thirty, typed and illustrated...