#a lot of the time I think the accusations of toxicity were blown out of proportion.

[chatxkilluaxnoir]

Hey OP, can we not do this?

I know you are trying to defend 2012 Raph or whatever, but this is not how you do it, by throwing another turtle under the bus; esp. since you don’t seem to be trying to sympathize with and/or at least try to understand Leo here (at all).

Leo literally had so much pressure and stress on him to be a leader, older/eldest brother, parent basically, and then later on, the head of the clan, because Splinter died.  All/most/some/a lot of this happening in the age span of 15-18 basically.

He was under extreme pressure and stress, with a more and more deteriorating mental state as the series went on, and all the trauma and grief.

A mental state that wasn’t even really given the chance to properly heal honestly.

And even with that, Leo still does try to be better and to be good to his brothers/family.

Even with all the shit he has gone through mentally, physically, emotionally, psychologically, etc.; he still tries to be a good and understanding person and family person.

Is he perfect?  No, but no one is, and every one of the turtles can be both nice and mean.

But overall they are all good brothers and a good family.

Seriously though, Leo’s character arc is tragic in so many ways. He matures as both a person and a leader, but in doing so, he loses a lot of his innocence and starry-eyed-ness, and at the cost of a lot of his mental state.

However, despite that, he still does try to be and do better.

That is what makes his character arc both tragic and inspiring to me.  And one of my favorites in TMNT 2012.

(Seriously though, the boy needs so much healing and therapy).

Also, people literally do already say that TMNT 2012 Leo/Leo is an asshole and/or doesn’t care about his family; when neither of those things are true.

Can 2012 Leo be an asshole sometimes?  Sure, but so can 2012 Raph, 2012 Donnie, 2012 Mikey; etc., etc.

However; Leo still is; they all are, still overall good people, that care about their family very much.

With 2012 Leo literally willing, and has almost died multiple times and/or died, and/or was put in a coma, and/or etc., due to his own love for his family.  2012 Leo literally doesn’t care about himself barely at all.

Seriously though OP.  I get you want to protect and defend 2012 Raph, but I will do the same for 2012 Leo (esp., because guess what, like 2012 Raph, 2012 Leo and Leo in general, has gotten so many BS takes over the years, so yeah), while trying not to tear down the others too.

I feel we don’t talk about this a lot or it’s never acknowledge but it blows my mind that people say 2012 Raph is the asshole of the group when 2012 Leo is right there!

As the series goes on, Leo becomes a massive dick and is just rude and/or judgmental of everyone he comes across including his friends and brothers.

[drdemonprince]

Something I think you're missing in how you talk about trans men: how recently you transitioned.

I came out circa 2007, and there was almost no information about us, no community where I lived (the local support group was all older trans women), no media outside of "Boys Don't Cry" and the way-better-but-still-basic "Parrotfish," no anything at all except TERF lesbian communities that coveted and hated us in equal measure, and general GSAs that were sweet, but dominated by cis people. I learned that the worst thing in the world I could be was a trans man - to be a trans man was to be a regressive agent of the patriarchy, and if I couldn't force myself to be nonbinary or a cis woman, I was evil.

In the early 2010s I attended a conference where a trans woman, a national celebrity I looked up to, made a joke about how useless trans men are during her keynote speech. I walked out of that room crying because as far as I knew, she was right - I was almost an elder by the standards of an atomized community where we were expected to die young, and even I couldn't name a single trans man in history who'd mattered.

We take it for granted now that trans men like Lou Sullivan made a difference, but to bring attention to him, folks like me had to swim upstream against a wave of accusations of misogyny from TERFs, and sometimes even from trans women. The acceptance you rejoice in at bathhouses? That was hard won through outreach by trans men. I even remember a specific trans male-run ambassador program in San Francisco circa 2013 dedicated to integrating trans men into the queer male community.

The world that's welcomed you was built by trans men who, like me, felt agonizingly alone and unwanted in both cis and trans communities. You paint a picture of lazy hangers-on who don't understand how good they have it, and maybe that's true for the folks you're looking at, but they don't reflect the hard work trans men have been putting in at every level of organizing for much longer than our efforts have been recognized. I've been involved in the fight for our liberation since I was a teenager, working on school and state-level policy change, medical access, the preservation of history, mentorship, dodging evictions, and all the little jobs my tired, autistic ass can take on, and I've never been rewarded for it outside the thanks of the people I've helped. All I ever wanted was to make things better for the generations that came after me.

I'd just like to have that reality acknowledged - that those of us who came before you built what you're now able to enjoy, and we can use that history to empower and encourage younger generations to continue doing the work instead of implying that no one's been doing it at all.

Thank you for this message. I would like to read a lot more about your perspective on this history. Please let me know your @ -- in private if you prefer. There are some elements of how this is framed here that do make me go, hm (the view was the worst thing you could be was a trans man?) but I am also appreciative of this this glimpse at what I don't know I don't know, and am interested to learn more about it.

But I also want to push back against the idea that I have no knowledge of how things were during the times you're talking about -- I was a queer, gender-questioning adult at that time too, and I was active in many trans spaces.

My medical transition is very recent in the grand scheme of things but I've been rolling deep with trans guys and going to trans masc events since 2003-2004 (in Cleveland and Columbus). I remember how the not-full-blown TERFY yet still very toxic radfems spoke about men, sexually preyed upon trans guys in some cases, and sometimes said things critical of transition. I knew several trans guys who had quite a guilt complex about becoming a "man" because they had internalized that men were inherently predatory and evil. Personally, I'd always thought that line of thinking was absurd and a very poor excuse for feminism, so it didn't get under my skin in the same way. Instead of making me not want to be a man, it made me not want to be a feminist. Which is pretty typical sexist bro shit to do really. Again, no big evidence of transmisandry here. certainly experiences that were emotionally very fraught and challenging for people, but not misandry or transmisandry.

These queer and feminist groups that I moved within were VASTLY more exclusionary to the trans femmes in the city, who were not even permitted to attend events for sexual assault survivors in the Columbus scene. I DID see trans women on the social periphery of these groups be discouraged from transitioning, and I did hear just about every vile transmisogynistic slur and exclusionary idea you can think of be passed around by many without challenge.

The transmisogyny stood out to me even back then as particularly egregious and rampant -- it disgusted me and caused me to distance myself from those groups of people in 2007-8. It was the outspoken hatred of anyone with an "amab" body and frothing transmisogyny that made me not want to be associated with that crowd or to contemplate transition, honestly -- not any kind of widespread anti-transmasc sentiment. These groups held top surgery fundraisers and hormone start date celebrates for trans guys and expressed desire for trans men openly and included them warmly in just about everything while treating trans women like predators and telling them they should just be feminine men (far, far away from them).

So my experience just does not track with what you are saying. I imagine we have two very different vantage points on similar periods of time, and I think there certainly is a lot more about trans masc history I could stand to learn and so many trans masc elders' whose names I should be putting more respect on. And I'd be very open to hearing more about that from you. But I do have to push back against the characterization of the era as someone who very much was there.

[the-awful-falafel]

tbh i hate how everyone is on Rick's side just because he showed character development, i think this is a breaking bad situation where everyone will stick with the main character (even though they've done awful things) because, well, it's the main character. It's like a fucked up toxic relationship between the audience and Rick, evil Morty was 100% correct in all his motives, even if his actions were fucked. At least they were temporary (hopefully), unlike literally any other rick

Yeah, Rick has definitely softened to a degree and I'm not inherently opposed to the idea of him getting redeemed, but from the way he's getting praised across the fandom you'd think he just underwent a full-blown redemption arc, rather than just half-teased the beginning of one. I can't see his recent "niceness" as being all that impressive in the grand scheme of things-- not only is he still exploiting Morty's forgiving nature to not fully confront how much he has damaged him + continues to damage him, he still hasn't faced any serious long-term consequences for his abuse of his family, or apologized for his worst actions in a way that shows he'll actually meaningfully change. Like, the fact he only came back to the family after his relationship with the crows fell through, and then brushed off Beth about him immediately resuming his concerning dynamic with Morty, says it all.

Rick doesn't seem entirely willing to confront the root of his dysfunction within the family, either-- he seemed more eager to return to a comfortable status quo than anything, and he really poorly deflected away from a lot of the (accurate) accusations of his character that Evil Morty brought up. I think people are just seeing Rick's very tragic backstory and acting like this retroactively redeems him / makes him forgivable compared to other Ricks, when in my opinion it just... doesn't really change much about our understanding of his character? Like, our Rick is still observably as horrible as most Ricks to begin with, based on how he treats countless others (especially on adventures) and how cruel and manipulative he can be, and the context of him being genuinely attached to his loved ones and suffering trauma from his original wife+daughter dying just makes his possessive, abusive, and negligent treatment of his current loved ones even worse to me. This brand of cruelty comes specifically from the fact he "cares" in his own toxic way, like many abusers-- it's not an inherently redemptive quality that makes him worth coddling, and nothing implies he was a great person before his tragedy, either.

Our Rick's clearly starting to lean towards redeeming himself after all this time, and I want him to be better, but it's going to be a long-ass road to come off as convincing, and it shouldn't involve downplaying his actions or being "rewarded" or "healed" with forgiveness from his victims, especially from those who he's outright manipulated the kindness of in the past. It's frankly just disturbing to imply he's owed those things regardless of context, anyway. (TBH, the finale's treatment of Rick and Morty's relationship and acting like they're somehow healthier now is enough for any future redemption arc built off of these episodes to put a really, really bad taste in my mouth regardless, but that's another topic.)

And yeah, Evil Morty might definitely be, well, evil, but he hasn't really done anything much worse than the average Rick. And at least Evil Morty's atrocities are a means to an end (him finally freeing himself from the multiversal cycle of abuse+enslavement) rather than a cyclic way to stave off boredom and wallow in traumatic self-pity like most Ricks. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if Evil Morty mostly mellows out now that he's finally free and got what he wanted.

[mysteries-x-mistakes]

I wrote this as a side story set in Wostria as a vent so it didn’t end up going anywhere (and that’s ok it served its purpose). I figured I’d post it because it heavily draws on my experiences in relationships, the trauma I’ve been through (esp as an autistic aromantic person). So tw for emotional manipulation/abuse I guess. This snippet has a happy ending as I made the character walk away when I couldn’t. But I thought it might resonate with some people.

Word Count: ~1000 words

“I didn’t. And I’m offended that you think I would say anything like that.” I rolled over to go to sleep. “I’m done talking about this.”

But he kept pushing, voice rising in volume. “How do you think I felt?” He made a sound of disgust. “I felt ashamed of myself. I felt gross. I was hurt that you see me like that.”

I felt anger rise within me, but I pushed it down. I just wanted to sleep and I was really hurting that he would put words in my mouth. But he wasn’t about let me get any sleep until I comforted him. Truthfully, I was upset that he was hurting. I didn’t like to see him in pain, but I wish he would admit that I didn’t say that. “I’m sorry that you’re hurting right now,” I said passively.

And then he snapped. “Really? Really! That’s all you’re going to say? That’s all you have to say about this? Wow. Ok.”

I could tell he was waiting for me to prompt him to continue, so I did. “What?”

“I honestly can’t believe you right now. Most people would immediately jump in and offer comfort. They’d be able to tell that the other person was hurting. Most people, when they love someone, can tell. They can read the other person’s mood and know when to offer support. It’s a natural human thing. That’s just part of being a person. We’re social creatures. It’s natural to turn to others and expect support.” There was a measure of anger and scorn in his voice that frightened me.

I was quiet. Too quiet. I had no idea how he wanted me to respond to that. He was accusing me of not being a person. Did he… did he not understand how hurtful that is? It took me a while to find my voice and even then, it was faint and small. “You didn’t tell me that’s what you wanted.”

“But that’s what I’m saying! A normal person would’ve known. Not doing that shows a severe lack of empathy.”

I felt tears prickle my eyes and I sniffled a little. “Please can we do this later. I can’t… I can’t right now.” He was attacking me and it hurt! A lot of feelings pushed to the surface and I wanted to run away and hide and cry until it all went away.

“No. We’re not done. Can’t you see how much you hurt me? I’m so upset right now. And you don’t care at all.” He insisted, oblivious to my feelings. 

I sat up and turned to look at him, tears rolling down my face. My voice was shaky as I responded, “What do you want from me?”

His eyes widened, taken aback. I watched as his anger dissipated. But then with a spark it came back again. “Fine. Whatever. I guess you won’t ever get it.” And then he turned around and curled up in his sleeping bag.

I had gotten my hopes up. Maybe he’d apologize for hurting me. Maybe he’d understand how his words and actions affected me. But then I saw the anger return and the little flicker of hope I had was blown out. This is just how things were. My hurt was less important than his. And I should get used to it.

---

“Because you… you’re not human!” He spat. His eyes blazed with hatred and it was in that moment that I realized this was not the relationship I had envisioned. This was not healthy and I needed to get out. 

The fury rose within me and I took a few breaths to calm myself. I knew that getting angry and lashing out, hurling magic at him, would only prove his point. Even if it would feel good in the moment. I also knew that cowing and accepting his words would be an admission of defeat and I refused to be beaten down. I squared up, set my shoulders back, and said, “I saw the potential in you. I saw what you could become and instead you’ve chosen to dig your grave and lie in it and I’m not going to put up with it anymore. I have been trying to grow and to change. That was the whole point of me entering into a physical form. And you haven’t been letting me. You’ve kept me tight in a cage of “not human”. You have these expectations of me and get upset when I don’t meet them. You expect me to be a certain way, but you haven’t allowed me the opportunities to become that way. So what if I’m not human? I am allowed to be myself, damn it, I’m allowed to be me! I’m allowed to be Violet. And I’m not going to let you keep that from me.” 

I could see the wheels turning in his head. I knew he would say something and apologize and I’d be soft hearted and give him another chance. But then he wouldn’t change. I’d be trapped again. So this time, before he could say anything, I walked away. For the first time in my life on this planet, I walked away. I put myself first. I made the healthy decision. And for the first time in all the time we’ve spent together, he let me. 

As I walked away, and walked and walked and walked, my thoughts ran wild. I had seen this happen; I had watched multiple toxic and abusive relationships and I have always wondered why people stay. I had always thought I’d be strong enough to hold my boundaries. I never thought I would let that happen to me. But I was wrong. 

[en-theheights]

All the problems with HSMTMTS:

I keep getting asked question on what happened in the fandom, and what is going on against all of the s*xual assault allegations against J*shua and T*m. This is going to be the post where I lay out all that I know of and inform the tumblr fandom on it because not all of you are on Twitter, and Tumblr is literally the heaven amongst fandoms. After this post, I’m DONE talking about this show and being apart of this toxic group. Along with talking about the s*xual assault allegations, I will also be addressing the issues during the BLM movement and other crap that not only the cast and crew have been a part of, but also the fandom itself. Let’s dig in.

Sidenote: I really don’t want any hate, I’m just trying to be open with you guys and inform you all. Also, I’m doing my best to remember everything, so if there is something that you want to know more on then please just message me personally cause I’m seriously SICK of discussing it publicly.

Not eveything in the fandom is due to JUST the cast and crew. This fandom is FULL of very toxic and creepy people.

A few months ago, someone (a grown women) who was overly obsessed with Olivia hacked into her grandfather’s account to turn it into a fan page to get undercover information on Olivia, as well as getting information on where Olivia lived. This grown women has also done some other seriously inappropriate things. If you want to learn more about the sketchy things that this women has done than you can go to Twitter and look it up.

There are always ship wars in fandoms, but this one takes it WAY too seriously. I’ve seen people get attack on their looks just for being a part of a ship. The ones that are heavily abusive are Rina vs Rini, Seblos vs CJ, and redlyn vs Redky. It has cause people to leave the fandom due to how bad the attacking got. On Tumblr, everyone’s pretty open about ships, but on twitter it is a literal battle field.

Disgraceful people still continue to ship the actors instead of the characters. J*livia and J*fia is what I’m going to talk more closely about. (First, josh is a grown adult and both Sofia and Olivia are minors, please unfollow me if you don’t see anything wrong with that). Sofia had to delete a few of her tik toks after one with Joshua went viral and people wouldn’t stop shipping her and him in her comments. Like one video she did, the caption was “I want a boyfriend” and people assumed they were dating and wouldn’t stop tagging him in her videos. As for Olivia, people have been shipping them since the beginning of the show. Fan accounts on all platforms have dedicated their time to this. I don’t necessarily remember if Sofia or Olivia came out saying that they were uncomfortable when they got shipped with their cast mates, but it started causing drifts between the actors because of this and Joshua wasn’t featured in any of Sofia’s videos after that and Olivia didn’t post as much as she use to with him. It goes to show that shipping actors makes things awkward and strained within their personal relationships. DONT DO THIS!

A person stating that they were friend’s with Olivia came out to expose Joshua of being a bad boyfriend after she tells everyone that Olivia and Joshua has been secretly dating during the press tour of HSMTMTS. There was clever evidence that showed they were dating and the girl came out with multiple receipts, and even went so far as to go on Instagram live to speak on the matter. But she then came out stating that it was false and she only wanted some attention. Apparently she was a j*livia stan. I can’t find anything on twitter about it anymore, since I’m pretty sure eveything was deleted. This can ruin people’s careers and I don’t know why anyone could think it’s okay. 

There are genuinely a lot of creepy adults that roam around in the HSM fandom. On twitter, there would be grown adults writing in detail how the kissing scene between Joshua and Olivia made them feel. People continue to post the gif of Nini and Ricky kissing and write out why it’s so important to them. People have taken that kissing scene and literally turned it into nasty and inappropriate sm*t on AO3 and Wattpad. Note once again that these characters are minors and it’s NEVER okay to write inappropriate stories about children. Grown adults need to be held accountable for their actions if this is how they’re acting.

Some parts of the fandom genuinely hate on both Sofia and Olivia for literally nothing. Just jealousy between their ships, and because of it, they think it’s okay to to personally attack the actresses on their looks and where they are in there careers. People continuously pin Olivia and Sofia against each other, like for example people bashing Olivia for not being as successful as Sofia, or Sofia being bashed because she doesn’t have the same singing career as Olivia. It’s once again, DISGUSTING!

This one is more about Disney and then not doing their part. Disney cut out the majority of Seblos’ scenes, which caused a lot of turmoil within the fandom and why Seblos felt unattached and awkward while they were together in all of their scenes after the dance episode. People called out Disney and said they they shouldn’t have put Seblos in if they weren’t going to go full out with it.

Onto the cast and the crew:

Kate (miss Jenn) got a lot of hate for exposing that Frankie (Carlos) and Joe(Seb) are in an actual real life relationship without asking them for their consent to tell the world. Don’t know whether they had spoken about them being in a relationship or not, but Kate didn’t speak on it after that either.

A video came out a few days ago of the cast taking cast pictures during their tour, and Mark (Mr. Mazzara) was standing beside Sofia in which it looks like his hand was rubbing Sofia’s lower back, and she seemed uncomfortable. I’m not sure if it’s a stretch or not because the video is super blurry and it’s hard to kind of see their faces, but you can clearly see his hand go behind her back. Personally for me, I didn’t notice anything too alarming, but you’d have to see for youself. I won’t be posting that and instead you can dm me personally and I’ll send you the link to the video.

A past comment of Joshua’s was exposed in which he is saying the F slur. #joshuabassettisoverparty was trending world wide on Twitter, with people wanting him off the show. He has apologized for it since then, but not many ever forgave him and it was just really his young girl audience that came to his defense, even though it wasn’t their apology to forgive. People that only stan him because he is a cute cis white male didn’t see the problem in what he had said, and kept saying that he was young and that it’s not a reason for us to hate on him, but he was only 17 when he said that, and it’s no excuse. Personally to me, his apology was super bland and he didn’t address it personally on his Twitter, but instead replied to a post saying he’d do better. Here’s what he had said:

Here is his apology on this:

Joshua also went on a live in which he said “boys, gals, or whatever” People accused him of being transphobic and enbyphobic. Others think that his words were being blown out of proportion. Here is that video:

I found it to be very ridiculous and rude that he doesn’t follow anybody on twitter or tik tok. On a live video, Julia said something about him not following her, and he just says that he doesn’t follow anybody and she shouldn’t take it personally. Honestly not that big of a deal, but it’s still shows pitifullness and arrogancy. Don’t know what his contract looks like with whatever agency he’s with, but maybe they’re just strict on that, but idk.

People hate on Matt (EJ) for being republican. He hasn’t done anything problematic or said anything out of offense, so for me he’s good. UPDATE: Turns out, Matt is friends with Benjamin Lawson Adams, a convicted pedophile. Here’s a brief statement in what happened:

He worked for the Weinstein company, so no surprise there. His arrest happened in May 2016, and his license was suspended to practice Law in July of 2018. If Matt knew what was best for him, he would stop having any and all associations with this dude.

That’s all I can think of on situations not regarding the s*xual assault allegations or the BLM movement. But there’s probably so much I’m missing. I’m going to make a part 2, cause the next half is too long to post here as well. I’ll label it #exposinghsmtmts so others are able to see it.

[martian-martian-martian]

Neither-receipt is claiming your a beetlebabe and write fanfiction of it

So I’ve seen! I don’t know whether you’re notifying me or accusing me. Either way, thank you for the opportunity to make a post about this. 

OKAY. SO. If you don’t wanna read all this shit, the short answer is: 

I’m not a “beetlebabe” (I don’t ship Beetlejuice and Lydia), and the fic is not a beetlebabes fic. 

If you don’t believe me, I’m gonna go further into it, but if you’re hell bent on demonizing me, no pun intended, I’m not gonna bend over backwards to convince anyone. I know what’s true. 

Anyway, the fic they falsely refer to is called ‘Strange Bedfellows’ and it’s a PLATONIC  longform fic that me and a dear friend wrote about Beej and Lydia navigating the awkward twists and turns of past trauma and the societal pressure and complexity of adult male-female friendships! 

As the person who wrote Betelgeuse in the fic, I based a lot of the interaction between Lydia and Beej after real friendships I’ve had with guys in my life, exaggerated of course, as a queer woman, and it is in part a reflection on my own personal discomfort and struggles with them under the absurd heteronormative pressure in our society.

Also??? Most importantly??? It’s deadass just a goofy story with Prince Vince and zombie prostitutes and fortune tellers and disguises and body-swapping and getting trapped in the netherworld. It’s not even that serious. It’s mostly just puns.

People who accuse it of being a Beetlebabes fic are usually xxx-theartofsuicide-xxx on different accounts (nether-receipt is a side account of hers), OR they’re basing their judgements off a TAGGING error, where me and my writing partner were dumbasses and tagged it incorrectly, a mistake we have hence fixed after the incredible shitstorm it rightfully caused. 

Either way, nobody who makes the accusations has ever actually read it, or if they have, they see what they want to see because, ahem: 

There is absolutely NO shipping content in it whatsoever, and I encourage anyone who doubts it to read it for themselves!

 https://archiveofourown.org/works/18426276?show_comments=true&view_full_work=false#comment_326245378

_ _ _

I don’t ship beetlebabes, never have, and never will.

In the past I was more nebulous about it, admittedly, because I wasn’t aware of the controversy. I think in one post I mentioned being intregued by the idea of a grown relationship? when asked about it? but I’ve since kind of wised up to the whole thing and solidifed my stance firmly in the squick zone.

And thats decidedly pretty much where i am. I am straight up not a beetlebabe.

I don’t really know how to prove that more than I already have. I don’t support beetlebabes shippers monetarily or with my time or signal boosting, I take great care to block and avoid all beetlebabes artists and writers on my page.  I’ve been outspoken about how much I hate the ship and think it glorifies pedophilia, grooming, and unhealthy creepy old men fantasies.

If that’s not enough, I guess people just have to take my word for it. *shrug* 

The outspoken beetlebabe ‘community’ (like, a handful of people) has ranted and raved about me for ages, including calling me, (a jewish conversion student) a full blown nazi, a puritan, and other ludicrous foaming tripe. 

Nonetheless, when that didn’t work, people decided the best way to shut me down was to try to turn people who agree with me against me. So that’s where we are. 

_ _ _

Honest to God, I’ll be happy never to fucking discuss beetlebabes or any of that discourse again. I had long since backed out of it, though I remain outspoken about grooming content in general, but lately nether-receipts started tonguing my asshole, so that’s why the shenanigans are circulating. My life does not revolve around my shipping opinions, and I really don’t feel a need to make any sort of point anymore, especially when some people are just toxic. 

I hope this clears up any lingering questions for people. 

Strange Bedfellows is still updating and I’m still posting chapters, I’m proud of it and I refuse to be ashamed of something that sits well with my own values and conscience. 

Maybe some people think that’s ironic, I couldn’t really give a damn. 

[leafallsonelines]

Bizarre Love Triangle

I'm not sure what this could mean I don't think you're what you seem I do admit to myself, that if I hurt someone else Then I'll never see just what we're meant to be  -New Order

I didn't want to get into a relationship.

He wore me down and soon enough I was the one crazy about him. I always answer to the undefinably strong pull toward a certain person. I was soul weary and needed a break from emotional turmoil. When you meet somebody else, they're the main character of their own love story (just like I am in mine; as it should be). I'm privy to fact that we all have a history, especially when dating in your late 20's and 30's. I wasn't ready for our stories to collide.

I desperately wanted to avoid cluttering my life with someone else's relationship baggage when I haven't even taken care of mine. He campaigned hard for the relationship. I went for it.

Despite my better judgment I always cave—give in to that desire — anticipate and absorb the pain that inevitably follows.

I told you that story to tell you this one.

Back in 2014 the term Cool Girl ™ was coined to describe women who change their personality for male approval. (The shtick is contrived and annoying once you spot it.) She doesn't have a solid sense of self and basks in attention to fill. That void; hoards men like Thanksgiving hams and gets territorial when she's not The Girl. She gets kicks from seeing how uncomfortable she can make other girls by openly flirting with their boyfriends just to watch them squirm. This act is so played out most people have an eye roll ready for anyone flying the “I'm not like other girls” banner. (Gen Z now calls them Pick-Me-Girls ™.)

I crossed paths with one in 2018 — my boyfriend's best friend of sixteen years. A self-indulgent, selfish friendship. I wasn't initially jealous, didn't interrupt, and it came back to bite me; it was hideously unfair.

For storytelling purposes let's call her “Kate Luu.” Kate, an incestuous tigermom who gets jealous of any girl her son gets with, a petulant toddler that would rather break a toy than let someone else play with it. Probably has BPD. Definitely needs a good therapist.

Like a lot of dewy eyed girls newly in love I conveniently dismissed the red flags around my boyfriend and Kate. I had empathy for them because of my past platonic friendships with flirty undertones. Guys would respectfully fall back when they got into relationships or if I Was in one. I struggled with the slow withdrawal of warmth, missed the emotional intimacy, but recognized it as the right call and moved on. A lot of young adults exploring their sexuality go through this. As I got older I favored female friendships for being uncomplicated, preferring to avoid unwanted sexual tension.

Empathy without boundaries is self-destruction.

A couple weeks after celebrating our one year anniversary Kate texts me, “We need to talk.” Alarms immediately go off in my head. The last few months I had started bringing attention to the bad vibe I was getting and the inappropriate nature of the relationship. I got tired of biting my tongue. He didn't know how to process it or correct it. His lingering infatuation with her made it impossible for him to distance himself or enforce new boundaries. He started hiding it instead. I caught him being intentionally ambiguous about his plans when going to see her. He fumbled himself into an emotional affair.

Princess Diana famously described her marriage to Charles as “crowded.” It was an unmistakable reference to his affair with Camilla. Looking back the (justifiable) anxiety I had was from being crowded. Intuition is not insecurity.

I met Kate for coffee and she read aloud a pathetic five page letter telling me I'm a bad girlfriend and “full of shit.” She was intervening on his behalf as the person who knows what's best for my boyfriend.

“It's none of your business.”

But no, she has the authority to interfere as his best friend of  sixteen years  and I was a  one year  nothing. She brought up the fact he was attracted to her first, told me I'm spineless and ruining their friendship with my insecurity. (She _really _ran with the words spineless and insecure.)

Accusations are confessions when they come from a manipulative person. Textbook projection. She was mad her narcissistic supply was tapering off. (Gaslighting Pro-tip: Label rightful jealousy as insecurity.)

My boyfriend gave her personal, intimate details of my life during their oversharings and she used that information to bully me. Nothing was off the table, including my sexual history. I can see how she manipulated him, but it was inexcusable. People who enable They leave the door open for endless rows of inappropriate behavior. All of this was happening behind my back for a year. That kind of intimate toxicity are suckers for ego massages.

Don't you just love a story where the villain puts all the evidence of her misdeeds in one letter and unravels into epic, illogical rage all in one afternoon, in the space of two hours?

How did Kate have time to write five pages of false narratives designed to destroy a relationship she was jealous of? She doesn't have a job. She's a pampered dog mom living in her rich fiancé's house for free. A busybody performatively taking care of other people to avoid a mountain of personal issues. (An unevolved Virgo.)

Don't worry about what I'm doing. Worry about why you're worried about what I'm doing.

Kate has many noticeable traits as an obnoxious, self-important person — an absolute fake. She calls herself a _philanthropist _without having done anything philanthropic or even knowing how to use the word; she literally saw a big SAT word that means good person and attached Herself to it. (A word assigned to big charitable donors like Bill Gates, not bloggers). She has the same relationship with the word “unconventional” and thinks using a bigger word for unique or quirky makes her even more unique and quirky. Nope, still basic.) In place of possessing any actual humor she repeats memorized dad jokes and leans into corny, forced puns. If this isn't annoying enough she then insists she's funny. (Funny people just make you laugh. They never have to tell people they're funny. Barfs in, “I speak fluent sarcasm.”)

If I poked a finger through her shallow veneer I'd find loose dirt and dog shit.

And you know what? I'm not even against intense friend love. I get it. I groove to “One Love.” Emotional freedom is important. Expressions of love are multitudinous. It should transform to fit the situation. She didn't respect basic boundaries to make room for all of us to be comfortable. She was just mad she got demoted and tried to burn the whole thing down.

Kate wanted to be the main character in my boyfriend's love story without ever actually dating him. Oh yes, I know — the audacity, the toxic lack of boundaries, the mind numbing arrogance. She's not even protagonist material — a papier-mâché hipster who got her personality from an Urban Outfitters catalog and can't stop contradicting herself despite the fact she is working off a pre-written letter. I have never encountered someone who thought so highly of herself while having almost no substance. She calls herself a writer , but is just a pseudo-intellectual English major who posts aesthetic word salad on Instagram.

Later on I realized that if someone is mean to you unprovoked it's jealousy. One of the catalysts for the meetup was a heartfelt anniversary post I wrote on Instagram. It's not my usual style, but I felt gushy and really went full blown poetic and swoony She's jealous that her own, brought up love and Birth of Venus, blah blah blah. She mentioned my IG post and even admitted it was poetic and well written, but proceeded to use that as the jumping off point to invalidate the love in it. writing is try-hard drivel; a woman in her thirties mentally stuck in 2011 tumblr cringe.

If she truly wanted him she should have pursued him honestly and not wait to mess with another person. Hell, even just owning up to her feelings and saying, “I realize I may have lost my chance with you. Is there still anything in our sixteen year history that makes you want to give us a shot instead? ”à la My Best Friend's Wedding. Treading some moral gray area, but way more acceptable than actively sabotaging a relationship.

She didn't really want him though. She just wanted to continue their friendship in that inappropriate flirtationship space to feed her ego. After the coffee date she ended their friendship in an email. That really important sixteen year friendship became disposable to her once she wasn't able to control it.

Sometimes trash does the public service of loudly identifying itself as trash and takes itself out.

If you're a female best “friend” to a guy in a relationship and you need to flex on “I was here first” and “We did this before you were in the picture,” then you were never interested in seeing that friend thrive in a romantic relationship. You just get off on being his favorite unfulfilled option. If seeing him in love with someone new has you feeling that miserable you're just being selfish. Real love doesn't overstep in a new relationship so you can hog their spotlight. You're not even a friend; you're a skunk marking your territory and keeping him in the friendzone while not really wanting him to have a girlfriend.

You learn to love somebody in their love language and not just yours. Selfish love is not real love. That's just using someone to fill a place. Maybe a distraction. Seeking anything in return isn't real love because if you want that you actually don't have love to give; it's fake; it's toxic. If there's someone who isn't around anymore and you miss them consider the fact that you might just miss the place they held in your life. (You have the freedom to fill that space anyway you want.)

She realized she burned through all her goodwill thus the sudden ghosting and extracting herself. I never asked my partner to pick me or issued any ultimatums. Sometimes important questions stay unanswered. Sometimes you have to move on without the apology you deserve. There is grief in never receiving closure.

My partner finally saw my concerns validated in the aftermath. I bubbled with rage remembering excuses he made for her. Day in and day out I was drinking from an overflowing cup of righteous anger. So what was his role in this? Stupid or co- conspirator?

He was oblivious.

“I can't believe you could've left me for a wannabe influencer.”

I switched my phone wallpaper from his picture to a solid color. Looking at his face filled me with disgust. There's only so much letting go you can ask someone to do. I knew I still loved him, but anytime a woman is hurt she becomes less interested.

How do you recover from unknowingly letting a toxic bitch walk all over and jeopardize your relationship?

Friends told me to move on, date other people. He campaigned for the relationship again. We did the work of picking up the pieces and starting over. 

I'm not pretending to be perfect. I was reeling from back to back traumas. My soft spots turned hard and cynical. It was my turn to be the toxic one. I drove to work sobbing everyday for a month. I complained constantly. My default became anxious and suspicious. I'm so out of touch with the person I was before; she's a stupidly innocent, free-spirited stranger to me. It took time for the poison leach out.

It's a lot of baggage.

The couples who make it aren't always the ones that never had a reason to break up. They're the ones that decide their commitment to each other is more important than their mistakes. Fast forward to the herculean effort he made to earn back my trust and we're still very happily together. (This is published with his permission.)

Our relationship is more grounded in reality now. It's not crowded anymore. Somethings more precious from having almost been lost. Somethings will never be the same. I'm the villain in her story, just as much as she's the villain in mine. We get to live out our own endings and there is peace in that.

Hurtful, painful, memories. Memories of deep regrets, memories of hurting and being hurt. Memories of being abandoned. Only those with such memories buried in their hearts can become stronger, more passionate, and emotionally flexible. Only those can obtain happiness. So Don't forget any of it. Remember it all and overcome it. If you don't overcome it, you'll always be a kid whose soul never grows.  -The Boy Who Fed On Nightmares

[livin-in-mementos]

After Some Time (...and a break or two)

Ugh... okay, its here. The big one. Let me preface this by saying I wont be doing a count by count story of what happened, it’s too many hour and headaches that I don’t need to be fair. But I said I’d get to it... and boy howdy has it been swirling in my head since.

The Slazo Situation Revisited

 So small backstory for those who haven’t boarded this crazy train of bullshit and migraines, this story is about a fairly large commentary youtuber by the name of Slazo (Or Micheal) who was caught in a controversy when his ‘Ex-Girlfriend’ exposed him in a Twitlonger for being a manipulative, sexual harasser. DM’s and screenshots of chat logs were shown and it made Slazo look pretty scummy. A few days later Slazo releases his defence video outlining the parts that were true and a lot of points that were fabricated to make him look evil in the eyes of the internet, with added proof and conveniently missing parts of his exes proof that would have exonerated him on the spot in the eyes of the internet courtroom. For opinions sake, yes I do think Slazo is innocent of the more damning accusations that were put against him, no I do not think he was 100% innocent. Of what he was guilty of? maybe being a pretty shitty boyfriend.... though at the age of 15-16... its slap on the back of the head material... not cancellation worthy.

Slazo was pretty much cleared of it all and everybody went on with their day... heck it shouldn’t even be called the Slazo situation, because while his name was brought up a lot, he wasn’t really all that key to what happened next... 

Commentary youtubers from all corners of the internet had an opinion on what Slazo had done and how guilty he was (again, I will not be doing a play by play of every accusation) which boiled down to two camps

1. “Slazo is guilty and here is why... Oh and have a bunch of off-cuff situations I witnessed where Slazo was really creepy that I only just now remember and want to bring up.”

2. “Lotta commentary youtubers being liars, snakes or hypocrites up in here.”

Which in turn brought two youtubers under the microscope themselves, ImAlexx and Hyojin.

Alex first as it’s easier and is the least weird of the two. Alex jumped on the Slazo hate bandwagon pretty quickly and started accusing Slazo of a bunch of things that couldn’t easily be proven, while also completely backing up the story that Chey (the ex) has given in her Twitlonger, despite the fact it had been blown open with so many holes that not even a brain dead goldfish could find logic in it. Alex would later admit he had a part in writing the Twitlonger, as did many other prominent commentary youtubers and friends,outing the Twitlonger as more of a team effort rather than just Chey writing it herself.

After this Alex was accused of a bunch of stuff himself including being a social climber to get more popular since he was a pretty good friend to Slazo before all of this happened, as well as a snake since he supported Chey and the Twitlonger until it was criticised as untrue.... and Alex said the same to cover for himself.

To this day there hasn’t been a clear end point to this, Alex has tried to brush away from it all and has taken the bumps of being called controversial, hoping for it to all die down eventually. (While writing this Alex appeared on the Happy Hour Podcast to give a rundown of the situation to the hosts who admitted they knew nothing of the situation. What’s worse Alex seems to have glazed over many of his own wrongdoings that only escalated the drama further.) Opinion? To be honest, I don’t know... Alex obviously tried to ride the controversy to boost himself, that much is sure, yet when it came back to bite him he tried to hide and wait for it to blow over. It’s sad, It IS snakeworthy and since a proper apology hasn’t been issued... it’s not a good look for him at all.

Hyojin to me was the worst of the two to me. While she didn’t say as much publicly, it was was was happening behind the scenes that just frustrated me.

(Be aware, if you like Hyojin and think she can do no wrong, DO NOT READ PAST THIS POINT. A lot of hot-takes will be thrown out there and a lot of criticism will be put out there too. I WILL be talking about the aftermath at length which is where the support poured in for Hyojin. I will being ripping that apart just as much, if not more for the bullshit that it was.)

Hyojin sucks, and I mean she really sucks. A lot of what was thrown out about Slazo in the Twitlonger allegedly was orchestrated and was the idea of Hyojin herself, taking what Chey was saying and embellishing it with the rest of their friend group. It’s alleged however and won’t be part of the criticism thrown at her.

While the incident was being investigated, Hyojin was too, including her colourful hot takes on Slazo and how creepy he was. Hyojin would never publicly call out Slazo since at the time, anybody who did was getting rinsed by the internet very quickly. So instead she hid on her discord and talked in DM’s about destroying Slazo’s career so he would never recover and deleting messages that challenged how Chey publicly omitted any evidence that made Slazo look like less of a monster. Shady.

During the internet investigations, it was discovered that Hyojin had an old art Twitter where her fictional character was drawn fucking her friends in several positions. The problem was, several of these friends were underage and despite her defence that none of these friends minded.... it was still there for public viewing as was still wrong. One instance even had another youtuber by the name of Kavos in one of these pictures even though he was never asked, nor gave his permission. The irony of all this being that much of what Hyojin criticised Slazo for, she was guilty of herself. Creepy.

Here’s where it gets controversial... probably more for me. Dog dropping rumours aside. (trust me, it was stupid)

Hyojin was getting major flak for everything that was found out about her and it seemed to get too much for her, which is understandable. Her response to all of this was a tweet telling everyone she was going to kill herself. The public response actually became something that confused me, because in the blink of an eye everyone retracted their criticisms and gave out well wishes instead. To make the trend even more sympathetic the youtubers involved in writing the Twitlonger started urging people to give her space and lay off on the nasty comments.

I for one, did not care. Heartless of me? Maybe. But it was all backed up by reasoning. Here was a girl ready to throw the life of a person under the bus for being a slightly shitty boyfriend and lying to make it sound worse. Helping to write up a statement that grossly exaggerated things to such a degree that Slazo was the most hated person on the internet and was blasted by everyone left, right and centre. After he proved to everyone he wasn’t like that, the attention turned on Chey and the friends that helped her and when their dirty laundry was put out there and they were being criticised.... now it was unacceptable? Now it was too much?

YOU TRIED TO OUT A GUY FOR BEING A SEX PEST! Shit that will follow him for life. But people calling out racist remarks you made? the underage porn you had drawn? The toxic behaviour you exhibited to anyone who questioned you?

....yeah that was too much and the line had to be drawn right?

But hey, it’s okay, you can just back to twitter the second the drama blows over and everything is all good now right?

Now this is where I direct it to the people who think that Hyojin is infallible, that she can do no wrong. She messed up bad, real bad. If anything she’s the true villain behind all of this and it’s shocking the lengths people were going to just to defend her. If every racist, abuser or sex pest threatened their life to be let off, this world would be screwed, but the second a darling Tumblr artist with links to popular youtubers does it, it’s a crime to list the irony that she attempted to cancel a guy with far worse repercussions that would lead to life long damage.

The worst part of all of this was that an apology would have cleared all of this. They knew they were wrong but an apology was impossible for them, so instead it’s made bigger, uglier and dirty laundry is shown. If anything, I’m happy it got to where it did since it showed the ugly side of Hyojin for everyone to see. So my opinion of Hyojin?

Fuck Hyojin.

[sonicpositive]

Every reaction to everything that Sonic does makes me have a meltdown, and yes I am autistic and proud. Everything in 3D is mediocre and if you try 2D again it's "nostalgia-bait." I've thought about suicide a number of times even. There is no happiness anywhere. =(

(Previous asks for context)

“ I wish people understood that I CAN love the past and the current at the same time. I do not appreciate the negative connotations surrounding the word “nostalgia” one bit. I played both Freedom Planet and Spark the Electric Jester because I was nostalgic for the Genesis days; why is that wrong? I’m more bothered by the hate for the old than the new honestly now. 2D or 3D makes no difference to me.

“ Is it wrong for me to ask that, with everything being blown so far out of proportion, that the nihilist in me wants everyone to quit having an opinion about a video game? 

“ I should NOT have to tolerate everyone in the so-called gaming community let alone fandom in general throwing accusations of “toxic fandom” everywhere or the outright bigotry towards Sonic as a concept. (…) 

“ It really offends me when people say that Sonic was “never that great to begin with.” How can they say let alone prove that? He’s responsible for helping lay the foundation of gaming as we know it. It also offends me when people warm up to ratting on something more than helping build it up.

“ I just got kicked off of AO3 for writing nonfiction rants standing up for Sonic and his fandom. Others were doing similar rants, so I thought I could do the same. My rants mainly tackled the idea that “toxic fandoms” and “bad games” are a thing. All of them got deleted including some other fanworks that broke away from that. Are people just afraid to take action? Are people so cozy with the status quo that they actually have to silence people like me?”

Thank you for your asks! I’m assuming all the above asks are yours, not, I apologize. We got a lot of anons at once. There are specific reasons why I omitted/edited some of the asks in this post, though.

Now, here’s one thing to keep in mind — we are not a discourse blog.

And more importantly, we are not therapists.

The ask I’m responding directly to really worries me. You need to seek help. We cannot help you with suicidal thoughts. We cannot help you with being unable to find happiness. I am so sorry you are feeling/have felt that way. If that’s something that you are still struggling with, you need to see a professional.

From our perspective, it seems that if your mental health is that heavily influenced by Sonic and the community, then that is a very unhealthy attachment. Sonic is one of my main special interests as well, but no special interest should be the cause of meltdowns or suicidal thoughts. You do not deserve to go through so much distress. If you can, look into how to separate yourself from the drama. Appreciate what YOU think of the series instead of what everyone else thinks. Focus on you. The very purpose of this blog is to be an escape from everything that you’re mentioning, so maybe we can help you in that way. However, we do not, and fandom in general does not cater to you. You can easily block or unfollow those that say things that offend you, but they are not going to change what they say just because you disagree. For those you can’t avoid, you may have to learn to tolerate it and to simply respect their opinion and distance yourself.

As for the rest of your asks that were not included in the recap above, again, we are not interested in getting involved in fandom discourse, especially in regards to real people. As such, we will not be posting/responding to those. I appreciate you wanting to have a discussion about it, but this is not the place for those kinds of debates.

This blog is called sonicpositive for a reason. We want to focus on the GOOD things about the Sonic franchise AND the fandom. We don’t mind people needing to vent here, we’re always happy to listen. These asks just really worried me and the other mods, so we had to take this a bit more seriously.

I wish you all the best!

💎 Mod Gem

[nerdgasrnz]

This is so stupid and frustrating bullshit bc like... I'm VERY new to navigating concepts of gender and sexuality from a new, non cis/het lens. There's terms and history I need to learn. That I'm STILL learning.

But then there's these super popular posts with all this Ace Discourse word soup that is just hard to decipher. WORSE for people who lack even more energy and patience.

Posts whrre I'm not fucking sure if I'm actually surrounded by people that support me, or just see me and others like me as a "special snowflake" trying to fit in, wanting to be oppresssd. Adding to the confusion about if I have enough "gold stars" on my queer card to qualify me to get "in."

Those posts with tens of thousands of notes talking about how """Exclusionists""" deserve to die. The "logic" for who they mean and why is needle buried in a 7 paragraph haystack.

On that side, you have the Intellectuals™ who flower up their bigotry at the length of an SAT Essay so they can fool impressionable people** into into thinking that what they're saying is worthwhile. But when they talk about "Exclusionists?" You don't know if they actually mean ignorant people excluding all Aros/Aces from what it "really" means to be queer, or if they're saying "all those filthy gays should die along with their allosexual* bretheren"

And then those people get mad when it's explained MULTIPLE TIMES how a word is horrible, because it lumps queer people with cis/straight people? Does that really sound like it makes sense? That is why "Allosexual" is an actual not good word!!! like sheesh just trust us on this one okay? "Non-Ace" works fine as a distinction.

So on the other side, you have those **Impressionable People who are blown away by these big words that don't actually make sense together.

"BUT HEY the post has a lot of notes, so they must be right! Now, let's throw together some similar-sounding words on topics where I actually don't know my stance. Let's contribute to a volatile, negative discussion to feel Valid™!!!"

So then, this leads to not just excessive use of the word "Allosexual" in reference to people that donot want to be categorized the same way as cisgender, heterosexual people: You also get people throwing around "terf" like it's just a quirky, acceptable tumblr insult.

But those people don't know that a "Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminist" is actually a gigantic warning for other peoples' safety. Transgender safety. Because RadFems like them want to oppress everyone they don't consider "real women" Like transgender people.

(re: the "Kill All Men" mantra, which to them, includes and misgenders Trans/Nonbinary people under the guise of "Womens' Rights" lmao)

With Buzzword Bigot's popularity, and naïve Mob Member #476, you get this Ace Discourse garbage: where you can't really tell which side hates you? Or if both sides hate you? Do THEY know why they hate you? You'll never know, because nobody will SAY WHAT THEY MEAN IN PLAIN LANGUAGE!!!

That's not just Acecourse, that's the minority experience!! When it used to be easier to tell who hated you, by whoever punched and spat on you!

But now everyone tries to duck and weave being (rightfully) accused of being a bigot.

I do not blame ANY queer person for standing up against blatant homophobia and transphobia and kicking people out of their spaces. When some fucker, who HAPPENS to be Aro and/or Ace, has a lame-ass agenda to create a shitstorm for publicity, yeah, you need to gtfo!!! Nobody fucking cares if you "deserve" to be at the VIP venue, or if you "paid your dues" to be there: if you're disruptive and destructive, the bouncers are kicking you out because of the damages you're causing!!!

I do not blame ANY queer person for hating people from MY spectrum of sexuality: because people from MY community are repeating toxic, hateful behavior and ideas that already wreaked havoc on queer people's safety. Because then you get shit like an "Ace-centric," apocalyptic, Young Adult novel pitch where "people die if they're physically intimate" sounds like a good plot; but that was already a thing in real life called the HIV/AIDS crisis in the United States. Which mostly plagued queer people. But yeah talk about it like it's just fiction because "those dirty allosexuals will die from that gross intercourse!"

If you're cis and on the aro/ace spectrum, and you're spouting shit that misgenders people, then yeah, trans people have every right to exclude you.

When you talk about gay bars with disdain, wanting "G-rated" alternatives, as if Queer people and Gay Bars are ALWAYS sexually explicit and never "turn it down"; you probs don't know how much you sound like one of the police officers that would arrest a queer person just for minding their fucking business.

If you don't experience attraction to the same gender in ANY way, and you're on the aro/ace spectrum, but you repeatedly talk about anyone/everyone who has interest or experience with sex like they're filthy, cursed, or diseased? Then yeah!!! Queer people don't fucking want you here!!!

Because you sound like every homophobic speech deliverer that we've EVER heard who goes on about "purity" and "innocence" and "virginity" as if they're the most sacred thing on the planet, as if lacking those things makes us "unworthy" of a happy and full life, or whatever!

Even aro/ace queer people don't want you here, because you're throwing us under the fucking bus too and you fucking know it!!! Don't pretend to feel "betrayed" as if you didn't know that Asexuality and Aromanticism are NOT cookie cutter experiences? There's sex repulsed people who aren't virgins; aros/aces that have sex. People with STD's who are WAY more pure and kind than most of us, who are putting effort in these stupid, divisive concepts on this hellsite.

If any of us wanted to experience the shit that you goddamn homophobes/transphobes were serving, we'd go crawling back to the cis/het people that already made our lives miserable! We'd listen to the family that already doesn't accept us! The public speakers that used their platform to tell us we deserve misery and death for the "debauchery" we live! We'd go back to the peers that always harrassed us!

We don't give a FUCK if you're Aromantic or Asexual spectrum; if you're gonna be hateful and not examine yourself to fix it, Queer people have every fucking reason to want you fucking gone! And it's NOT because of your sexuality or lackthereof, it's because you're just like all the other assholes that have been in our lives!!! So fuck off!!!

[letterbead93-blog]

BREAKING NEWS: Harley “Durianrider” Johnstone in Disgraceful Road Rage Incident

Serial sleazeball and full-time asshole Harley "Durianrider" Johnstone has just made the news here in Australia, and for all the wrong reasons.

After a motorist came a bit too close for the vegan troll's liking on what appears to be Norton Summit Road in the Adelaide Hills on Sunday, Johnstone completely lost whatever tiny shred of sanity he had left and went into a bogan meltdown. The cracker is that Johnstone, money-grubbing attention-whore that he is, thought it would be a great idea to post footage of his outburst on YouTube. He evidently wasn't planning on Channel Seven also sharing the footage on their top-rating current affairs show Today Tonight. Unlike Johnstone's dipshitted YouTube followers, Today Tonight's demographic aren't so forgiving of obnoxious vegan assholes. After watching the footage of Johnstone screaming "kill me, fucking kill me!" at the motorist, Today Tonight's Facebook page lit up with dozens of folks eagerly volunteering to do just that.

Here he is ladies and gentlemen, the world's most loathsome vegan, in all his feral glory:

For the record, I absolutely despise car drivers who drive dangerously close to cyclists, especially when the neighbouring lane is completely empty. But I'm nowhere near convinced this driver's actions warrant the histrionic carry on displayed by Johnstone. I've had assholes come a lot closer to me whilst riding than this guy did to Johnstone. Furthermore, the BMW driver appeared to have crossed the double white lines while passing (you're allowed to do this if passing a cyclist) - hardly the kind of accommodating behaviour you'd expect from a member of the pigheaded "Cyclists Should Get Off the Road!" crowd.

It's also important to note there was a cyclist approaching from the other direction, which meant the BMW driver had to be careful about pulling out too far to the right.

And last but not least, the driver seemed pretty calm and rational about the whole thing, and wasn't yelling the usual "You @#%s shouldn't be on the @#$%&# road!" stupidity that so many of our other feeble-minded motorists mindlessly recite. If this guy was out to "kill" cyclists, he wasn't very enthusiastic about his mission.

Methinks the Doucherider, grandmaster of overeaction and tantrum-throwing that he is, chose the wrong motorist to try and make an example of. And while he no doubt figured posting the exchange online would garner a boatload more hits for his monetised YouTube channel, the whole charade seems to have blown up in his ugly face.

If Johnstone and his British-accented buddy really believed their lives had just been jeopardized, and that the driver was trying to "kill" them, why didn't they just ride straight to the nearest police station and show the cops the footage? As history clearly shows, the Doucherider has no qualms about running like a little sook to SAPOL and accusing people of causing him harm, so why the reluctance in this case? Oh wait, in this case he actually had footage of the incident, and it pretty much showed his claims to be nonsense. So instead of going to the cops, Johnstone and his clueless mates posted the footage on YouTube, thinking his loyal followers would automatically side with him. Like I said, he clearly wasn't planning on the mainstream media picking up on the story.

There are several important lessons to be learned from this video.

Lesson #1: Shit Diets Can Cause Shit People

Vegan diets are not good for one's mental health. Studies have repeatedly found vegetarians suffer a higher incidence of B12 deficiency than omnivores, with vegans showing the highest incidence of all (thanks to their complete avoidance of animal foods)[1].

Why is this pertinent to the current conversation?

Because vitamin B12 is absolutely crucial to mental health.

The Oxford Vegetarian Study found death from mental and neurological diseases was a whopping (and statistically significant) 2.46 times higher among vegetarians[2]. While I normally couldn't care less about the farcical science of nutritional epidemiology, an RR of 2.46 is far more robust than the usual anemic and confounder-prone RRs cited for suppoosedly evil (but perfectly healthy) foods like red meat. Furthermore, this statistical association between meatless diets and neurological/mental dysfunction has a very plausible explanation, given that B12 is crucial for healthy cognitive and neural function.

And the OVS was hardly the only study to indicate negative psychiatric consequences from meatless diets. Studies in Germany, Austria and Australia show a higher rate of mental health problems among vegetarians[3-5]. Here in 'Straya (that's bogan for Australia, mate!), a study of over 9,000 women found vegetarians and 'semi-vegetarians' were far more likely to have been diagnosed with iron deficiency, anaemia, depression and anxiety disorder. Vegetarians and semi-vegetarians also reported more menstrual symptoms (irregularity, premenstrual tension and severe period pain) than non-vegetarian women, had a higher incidence of constipation and other bowel problems, were more likely to be depressed, have difficulty sleeping, and to experience panic attacks or palpitations. Most alarmingly, they were far more likely to have engaged in deliberate self-harm than non-vegetarians[6].

Yeah, go vegan. If you want to be a miserable, constipated sod.

Lesson #2: Get off the Drugs, Australia.

The second key issue this video raises is the potential mental impairment caused by illicit drug use. Johnstone has admitted to taking steroids and methamphetamines. He claims he no longer uses them, but given his long and well-documented history of blatant lying, and the behaviour he displays in the above video, I'm simply not prepared to take his word for it. Standing in the middle of a public roadway, incoherently yelling, screaming and begging for a stranger to kill you, is textbook classic meth-head behaviour.

I personally have little issue with healthy, grown adults taking judicious doses of well-studied anabolics like testosterone enanthate in short cycles (this does not mean I use them myself, and anyone who claims otherwise is more than welcome to put their money where their libelous mouth is and pay for me - and themselves - to get tested). Having said that, I have a pretty poor regard for the risky polypharmacy so prevalent these days, where people of highly questionable intellect self-administer large doses of multiple anabolics, along with a host of associated pharmaceuticals in an often questionable mission to minimize the side effects of the former. Given Johnstone's extremist tendencies and the video footage of him bragging about the large amount of steroids stashed at his bogan batcave, I'm guessing his steroidal endeavours involve a lot more than just short, judicious cycles of enanthate.

As for non-anabolic drugs, I cannot even begin to condone using toxic garbage like cocaine and methamphetamines, both of which Johnstone has also admitted to using. As someone who has never even smoked a cigarette, I just don't get illicit recreational drugs, I really don't. Despite their well-documented decades' long history of screwing people's lives up, millions of people around the world continue to experiment with them, and then act surprised when their lives fall apart and their health turns to shit.

"Hmmm, this junk ruins livers, kidneys and brains, causes people to act psychotic, makes them look like crap, destroys lives and families, and often kills people ... Yep, I think I'll start taking it!"

Fucking brilliant.

And nowhere is this bizarre process of deduction more prevalent than in Australia. The United Nation’s World Drug Report 2014 found Australia had the highest proportion of recreational drug users in the world. Given that, at last count, there were some 188 sovereign countries in the world, that's an absolute disgrace.

The shameful statistics confirmed Australians as the world's most prolific users of ecstasy, third for methamphetamine, and seventh for cannabis. Australia ranked second only to the US for addiction to opioids such as codeine and morphine, the use of which was disproportionately high among Australian women[7].

And the real cracker is that, despite living on an island with a very large pool of water separating us from South America, Australians are the world's fourth biggest users of cocaine. Maybe border security should worry less about about Johnny Depp's dogs and Bodybuilding.com packages, and more about containers full of "furniture" from Colombia. Or even better, maybe Australians should just stop snorting toxic shit up their nose.

You know, just a thought.

Lesson #3: Lift Your Driving Game, Australia

The third thing I'd like to address is the truly appalling behaviour of a sadly large proportion of Australian motorists.

To listen to a lot of Australian car drivers, you'd think cyclists are the biggest menace that ever blighted Australian roads.

[SCENARIO: TWO COPS AT THE SCENE OF A DEVASTATING ROAD ACCIDENT]:

COP 1: "So what happened here, Junior Constable Peachfuzz?"

COP 2: "Well, Senior Sargeant Beergut, according to witnesses, this guy on a lightweight racing bicycle ran a red light and hit a semi-trailer. The force of being hit by a 60kg lycra-clad bloke on a 7kg carbon-fiber bicycle caused the 50-tonne truck to fly into the air, overturn, and land upside down on a school bus. This caused both the truck and the bus to explode, causing all buildings within a 75-metre radius to catch fire and burn to the ground. So far we've counted 144 bodies, but we expect there to be more. Also, one of the cyclist's water bottles dislodged and hit a koala."

COP 1: "Fucking cyclists! If they were forced to pay rego fees like us angelic car drivers, none of this would've ever happened!"

Yep, there's a reason why no-one ever accused this country of being an epicentre of intellectual brilliance. It seems the same mentality that could do no better than the terribly lame "Aussie, Aussie, Aussie! Oi, Oi, Oi!" as our international sporting chant also shaped much of the motoring public's view of cyclists.

The reality is that while hundreds of cyclists have been killed by motor vehicles in Australia, the number of car drivers killed after their vehicles were hit by bicycles amounts to a big fat ...

ZERO.

The indisputable fact is that the most common cause of accidents, injury and death to Australian motorists is THEMSELVES and OTHER MOTORISTS.

I repeat: The biggest danger to Australian motorists is THEMSELVES and OTHER MOTORISTS.

To all you Australian drivers: Every time someone leaves their car at home and rides their bike instead, be it for work, shopping or leisure purposes, that is one less missile on the road with the potential to kill YOU, YOUR FAMILY, and YOUR FRIENDS.

Think about it.

Research by the Adelaide and Monash Universities (the latter involving actual camera footage rather than the speculative hogwash that the MUARC unit is so adept at) shows that around 75% of accidents and near-misses between cyclists and drivers are the fault of drivers. Analysis of accidents involving cyclists and motor vehicles in the mainland US and Hawaii have shown similar results, while a study in London found two-thirds of motorists were to blame.

Why?

It's not rocket science, folks. Cyclists are far less likely to act in a manner that could initiate accidents with cars because they have far more to lose. A car driver has the luxury of being encased in a 1,500kg shell comprised of metal, rubber and plastic. A cyclist has no such luxury, and when 70-90kg or so of rider + bike collides with a 1,500 kg+ missile commandeered by some dipshit busy sending SMS messages, it's not hard to work out who will come off second best.

While Johnstone is a complete loser and seems to have a death wish, most of the Australian cycling public does not. It's high time Australian drivers learned a modicum of respect and patience. Not just for cyclists, but for other motorists as well. I've always thought poorly of the standard of driving here in Australia, but after riding in Spain, I find the Australian attitude towards other road users and especially cyclists to be nothing if not appalling. While our clueless, revenue-raising cops hide at the bottom of steep hills, engaged in the patently sleazy activity of booking motorists exceeding our arbitrary and non-evidence-based speed limits by a few KMHs, no-one seems to be doing jack to address the feral, territorial and highly aggressive attitude that is so commonplace among Australian drivers.

Little surprise that while Australian speeding fine revenue continues to reach new highs, the road toll in most Australian states is increasing.

I challenge anyone who is not institutionalized in a psychiatric facility to watch videos like the following, and then repeat with a straight face how it is cyclists who pose the biggest danger on Australian roads:

Folks, give cyclists room. It's not that hard. If Spanish bus drivers were able to safely commandeer massive coaches around me on narrow and incredibly windy roads like the epic ascent out of Sa Calobra (over 20 hairpin turns!), then there's simply no excuse for you not to do the same in a nimble sedan on wider and straighter stretches of road.

And if you can't safely pass a cyclist without allowing a safe gap, then here's a suggestion. It's pretty revolutionary, so you may want to sit down for this:

WAIT UNTIL IT'S SAFE BEFORE YOU PASS.

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, thank you!

No really, thank you!

Aw, c'mon, you're too kind!

In all seriousness, the seemingly simple and commonsense idea of slowing down for a few hundredths of a second to allow a cyclist to get past an obstruction like a parked car is just beyond the reality of many Australian motorists. Instead, as if possessed, they'll either hold steady or even stomp on the accelerator and squeeze past you, placing your life in very real danger lest you wobble a few inches off course from the resultant shock.

As for expecting these reckless, impatient grumps to hold back a bit in the hills until it's safe to pass ... fuggetaboutit. Wherever they're going - the pub? home to watch the cricket? - is so important, so fucking urgent, that they'll even dive into blind corners to get past you. This actually happened to me yesterday - some loon raced past me in his approach to a corner, only to be greeted by a car coming the other way. Thankfully said loon swerved back into the left lane lane in time and nothing came of it, but the irony is that the actual corner itself contained an asphalt shoulder that would have allowed me to pull to the side and let the kamikaze in question past without incident.

But nope, a lot of Australian drivers just can't friggin' wait. They just have to get past you, and they have to get past you NOW, damnit!

After a month in Mediterranean Spain, I came to realize something about Australia:

It's a highly strung country.

Australians still like to view themselves as a happy-go-lucky bunch, but a few days on Melbourne roads will quickly dismiss that stereotype. Far from being a carefree people, we live in a stressful, consumerist culture where everyone seems to be trapped on the debt treadmill. Everything is expensive, including our utilities and real estate, which currently rank among the most costly in the world. We live in an over-governed nanny-state, ruled by a bunch of pork-barrelling sleazeballs with the temerity to tell us the "age of entitlement is over", while they continue to do everything from using helicopters for short trips that could have easily been completed by car, to enjoying lifelong salaries after they leave office - all at the public's expense.

Last year I read about a recent survey that ranked Australia the eighth happiest nation in the world (the Danes, apparently, were the cheeriest of all). As soon as I read that, two words entered my mind:

"Fuck off."

Followed by:

"Seriously, just fuck off."

We've got the highest rate of drug use in the world, we have twice the suicide rate of countries like Italy and Spain, we had to introduce special laws to deal with a plague of random king hit attacks, and our capital cities are now home to the kind of psychotic driving and road rage that years ago most Australians would've only ever seen in a Hollywood action movie. But we're in the top ten cheeriest nations?

Yeah, no worries.

Either that survey was put together by the same jokers responsible for the polls predicting "NO" to a Brexit and a runaway Hillary Clinton win, or most of the Australian respondents were stoned when they filled in the questionnaire.

Lesson #4: If You Can Afford it, Educate Your Kids Overseas

One of the common arguments cited by the anti-cycling brainiacs is that "cyclists do not belong on the road".

Remember my comment about no-one ever accusing this country of being a hotbed of intellectual brilliance? That's due to a couple of factors:

1. Australia does not have a learning culture. A regrettably large number of Australians would rather watch cricket or get drunk than read a book. That's not entirely their fault, for reasons to be discussed in factor #2:

2. The Australian education system sucks. A recent international comparison of education standards shows Australia is getting creamed, not only by Asian countries like Singapore, Japan, Chinese Taipei, Korea and Hong Kong, but even Kazakhstan — the Central Asian country satirised in that horseshit Sacha Baron Cohen film Borat.

Anyone who can retain the natural curiosity and inquisitiveness characteristic of children after surviving 10 or more years of the substandard, stultifying Australian education system is a special individual. Heck, anyone who emerges with decent reading and grammar skills is pretty unique. Employers frequently complain that even university graduates can't spell or structure sentences properly, and a 2008 survey found 47% - almost half - of Australians were functionally illiterate!

"That means they can't read the instructions on a medicine bottle, they can't read a map, they can't read a recipe," laments Jan Richards, manager of Central West Libraries in NSW.

If Australians struggle to read a recipe or the instruction label on their bottle of anti-depressants, don't expect them to read the road rules for their respective state. If they did, they'd learn that the right of cyclists to ride on the roads is enshrined in law. To illustrate this point, let's take a look at the laws in South Australia, where the Doucherider vs BMW Alpina incident occurred.

Australian states either incorporate the Australian Road Rules or feature their own partially modified variant. Here's S14 and S15A from the ARR as reprinted in the SA regulations, which define what a "road user" and a "vehicle" are:

South Australian legislation, and the ARR upon which it rests, clearly state a rider is a road user, and that a bicycle is a vehicle. So too is a horse and cart and a motorized wheelchair. Speaking of horse and cart, another common retort by the anti-cycling geniuses is that roads were made for cars, not bicycles. Actually, they were originally made for horses. As for bicycles, they were invented before motor vehicles. If modern roads are not adequately designed for cyclists, that's hardly the fault of cyclists - it's the fault of road designers and the governments who steal so much of our money in the form of taxes, fees, fines, levies etc, etc, and then give us such a terribly deficient road system in return.

So when Australian motorists claim cyclists do not belong on the road, they are not expressing the law but their own personal ignorance and bigotry. Imagine if they tried applying this logic in other areas:

JUDGE: "Why did you stab the victim when he was minding his own business and posing absolutely no threat to you, Mr Shiftycock?"

DEFENDANT: "Because he was wearing a One Direction t-shirt, Your Honour."

JUDGE: "What?!"

DEFENDANT: "He was wearing a One Direction t-shirt."

JUDGE: "That hardly constitutes grounds for fatally wounding someone, Mr Shiftycock."

DEFENDANT: "Oh yes it does, Your Honour! I don't like One Direction, and therefore people who wear One Direction t-shirts shouldn't be on the footpath!"

Australia, The Clever Country.

Not.

Lesson #5: Some Cyclists are Idiots Too.

Before I kick this section off, I want to point out something that would be bleedingly obvious in a country where half the people weren't semi-literate:

Cyclists are only human.

This means that, just like motorists who make earnest mistakes on the road, cyclists sometimes make earnest mistakes too. Sometimes they misjudge the speed of an oncoming vehicle, sometimes they don't even see that vehicle until it's too late. As with motorists who make honest mistakes, this falls under the categories of human error and incompetence, not malice arising from an evil two-wheeled conspiracy to take over the country's road system.

Let he who has not sinned ...

Now that we've got that out the way, it's time to acknowledge a disappointing reality: More than a few cyclists act like idiots on the road, too.

In Victoria and South Australia, cyclists are legally allowed to ride two abreast. But sadly, the same education system that produces PhDs with crap English skills and dipshit drivers who think a lightweight Colnago is more dangerous than a supercharged Monaro with P-plates, also produces a not insignificant number of cyclists who can't count.

If there's one thing that pisses motorists off, it's driving along, only to be slowed to a crawl by a group of cyclists unnecessarily riding 3 or more abreast. A sin, I know for a fact, that Johnstone and his selfish riding buddies are 100% guilty of.

And let's be honest - while riding two abreast might be legal, there are circumstances where it's just not a good idea. You know, like in the middle of corners on narrow, windy roads. On a recent trip to Adelaide during the Tour Down Under, I decided to go for a ride along scenic Gorge Road to Gumeracha. On the way back, I came into a bend and couldn't believe what I was seeing up ahead: Two female riders riding two abreast, with one in the middle of the lane and the other sitting on the dividing white lines and at one point actually crossing over them into the oncoming lane (note to the PC crowd: Testosterone is not a prerequisite for foolhardy behaviour).

This was in the middle of a corner, for chrissakes! I ended up passing them on the inside, because passing them on the outside would have meant riding in the centre of the oncoming lane! There was simply no excuse for them not to be sitting to the left of the road, and if a car had approached at speed in either direction, things could've gotten real ugly, real quick.

It's people like this who help worsen the already struggling public image of cyclists. While the rest of us do the right thing, stick to the left, use hand signals to indicate our intentions to motorists, and give a friendly wave or thumbs up when motorists do the right thing, you idiots are out there stubbornly undoing all our good work.

Fair's fair, folks. You want respect on the roads? Then you unrepresentative numbskulls should wise up, show some respect yourself, and stop making things worse for the rest of us.

As for Harley Johnstone, why don't you just fuck off back to Thailand, asshole? That Today Tonight story, while alerting thousands of people to what a complete jackass you are, is now threatening to set back cyclist-motorist relations in this country a millennium or so. While Australian cyclists have reacted to that video by almost unanimously rejecting you as an unrepresentative disgrace, and while a lot of the comments on the Today Tonight Facebook page are by people wise to your stupidity and the idiocy of your fanatical vegan ideology, those comments also contain a frighteningly large number of nutters expressing some pretty disturbing anti-cycling sentiment.

Before I sign off, it would be remiss of me not to give credit where credit is due. I want to say a humongous Thank You! to all the decent Australian motorists who are abiding by the new laws, and giving us cyclists a safe berth when they pass. Believe me, your courtesy is deeply appreciated. Please, please keep it up. Please ignore all those moron motorists whose diatribes about cyclists would see them charged with hate speech if they were talking about certain other minority groups. And, please, don't ever even begin to think that a puerile waste of space like Harley Johnstone is representative of Australian cyclists.

Ride and drive safe people, we're all in this together,

ciao,

Anthony.

---

Anthony Colpo is an independent researcher, physical conditioning specialist, and author of the groundbreaking books The Fat Loss Bible, The Great Cholesterol Con and Whole Grains, Empty Promises.

For more information on Anthony's books, click here.

---

The Mandatory “I Ain’t Your Mama, So Think For Yourself and Take Responsibility for Your Own Actions” Disclaimer: All content on this web site is provided for information and education purposes only. Individuals wishing to make changes to their dietary, lifestyle, exercise or medication regimens should do so in conjunction with a competent, knowledgeable and empathetic medical professional. Anyone who chooses to apply the information on this web site does so of their own volition and their own risk. The owner and contributors to this site accept no responsibility or liability whatsoever for any harm, real or imagined, from the use or dissemination of information contained on this site. If these conditions are not agreeable to the reader, he/she is advised to leave this site immediately.

References

Pawlak R, et al. How prevalent is vitamin B(12) deficiency among vegetarians? Nutrition, Feb, 2013; 71 (2): 110-117.

Appleby PN, et al. Mortality in British vegetarians. Public Health Nutrition, 2002; 5 (1): 29–36. Available online: http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/78/3/533S.full

Burkert NT, et al. Nutrition and Health – The Association between Eating Behavior and Various Health Parameters: A Matched Sample Study. PLoS ONE, 2014; 9 (2): e88278. Available online: http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0088278

Michalak J, et al. Vegetarian diet and mental disorders: results from a representative community survey. International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity, 2012; 9: 67.

Baines S, et al. How does the health and well-being of young Australian vegetarian women compare with non-vegetarians? Public Health Nutrition, 2007; 10 (5): 436–442.

Ibid.

United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. World Drug Report 2014. unodc.org. Available online: http://www.unodc.org/documents/wdr2014/World_Drug_Report_2014_web.pdf

Source: http://anthonycolpo.com/breaking-news-harley-durianrider-johnstone-in-disgraceful-road-rage-incident/

[dramabus2-blog]

BREAKING NEWS: Harley “Durianrider” Johnstone in Disgraceful Road Rage Incident

Serial sleazeball and full-time asshole Harley "Durianrider" Johnstone has just made the news here in Australia, and for all the wrong reasons.

After a motorist came a bit too close for the vegan troll's liking on what appears to be Norton Summit Road in the Adelaide Hills on Sunday, Johnstone completely lost whatever tiny shred of sanity he had left and went into a bogan meltdown. The cracker is that Johnstone, money-grubbing attention-whore that he is, thought it would be a great idea to post footage of his outburst on YouTube. He evidently wasn't planning on Channel Seven also sharing the footage on their top-rating current affairs show Today Tonight. Unlike Johnstone's dipshitted YouTube followers, Today Tonight's demographic aren't so forgiving of obnoxious vegan assholes. After watching the footage of Johnstone screaming "kill me, fucking kill me!" at the motorist, Today Tonight's Facebook page lit up with dozens of folks eagerly volunteering to do just that.

Here he is ladies and gentlemen, the world's most loathsome vegan, in all his feral glory:

For the record, I absolutely despise car drivers who drive dangerously close to cyclists, especially when the neighbouring lane is completely empty. But I'm nowhere near convinced this driver's actions warrant the histrionic carry on displayed by Johnstone. I've had assholes come a lot closer to me whilst riding than this guy did to Johnstone. Furthermore, the BMW driver appeared to have crossed the double white lines while passing (you're allowed to do this if passing a cyclist) - hardly the kind of accommodating behaviour you'd expect from a member of the pigheaded "Cyclists Should Get Off the Road!" crowd.

It's also important to note there was a cyclist approaching from the other direction, which meant the BMW driver had to be careful about pulling out too far to the right.

And last but not least, the driver seemed pretty calm and rational about the whole thing, and wasn't yelling the usual "You @#%s shouldn't be on the @#$%&# road!" stupidity that so many of our other feeble-minded motorists mindlessly recite. If this guy was out to "kill" cyclists, he wasn't very enthusiastic about his mission.

Methinks the Doucherider, grandmaster of overeaction and tantrum-throwing that he is, chose the wrong motorist to try and make an example of. And while he no doubt figured posting the exchange online would garner a boatload more hits for his monetised YouTube channel, the whole charade seems to have blown up in his ugly face.

If Johnstone and his British-accented buddy really believed their lives had just been jeopardized, and that the driver was trying to "kill" them, why didn't they just ride straight to the nearest police station and show the cops the footage? As history clearly shows, the Doucherider has no qualms about running like a little sook to SAPOL and accusing people of causing him harm, so why the reluctance in this case? Oh wait, in this case he actually had footage of the incident, and it pretty much showed his claims to be nonsense. So instead of going to the cops, Johnstone and his clueless mates posted the footage on YouTube, thinking his loyal followers would automatically side with him. Like I said, he clearly wasn't planning on the mainstream media picking up on the story.

There are several important lessons to be learned from this video.

Lesson #1: Shit Diets Can Cause Shit People

Vegan diets are not good for one's mental health. Studies have repeatedly found vegetarians suffer a higher incidence of B12 deficiency than omnivores, with vegans showing the highest incidence of all (thanks to their complete avoidance of animal foods)[1].

Why is this pertinent to the current conversation?

Because vitamin B12 is absolutely crucial to mental health.

The Oxford Vegetarian Study found death from mental and neurological diseases was a whopping (and statistically significant) 2.46 times higher among vegetarians[2]. While I normally couldn't care less about the farcical science of nutritional epidemiology, an RR of 2.46 is far more robust than the usual anemic and confounder-prone RRs cited for suppoosedly evil (but perfectly healthy) foods like red meat. Furthermore, this statistical association between meatless diets and neurological/mental dysfunction has a very plausible explanation, given that B12 is crucial for healthy cognitive and neural function.

And the OVS was hardly the only study to indicate negative psychiatric consequences from meatless diets. Studies in Germany, Austria and Australia show a higher rate of mental health problems among vegetarians[3-5]. Here in 'Straya (that's bogan for Australia, mate!), a study of over 9,000 women found vegetarians and 'semi-vegetarians' were far more likely to have been diagnosed with iron deficiency, anaemia, depression and anxiety disorder. Vegetarians and semi-vegetarians also reported more menstrual symptoms (irregularity, premenstrual tension and severe period pain) than non-vegetarian women, had a higher incidence of constipation and other bowel problems, were more likely to be depressed, have difficulty sleeping, and to experience panic attacks or palpitations. Most alarmingly, they were far more likely to have engaged in deliberate self-harm than non-vegetarians[6].

Yeah, go vegan. If you want to be a miserable, constipated sod.

Lesson #2: Get off the Drugs, Australia.

The second key issue this video raises is the potential mental impairment caused by illicit drug use. Johnstone has admitted to taking steroids and methamphetamines. He claims he no longer uses them, but given his long and well-documented history of blatant lying, and the behaviour he displays in the above video, I'm simply not prepared to take his word for it. Standing in the middle of a public roadway, incoherently yelling, screaming and begging for a stranger to kill you, is textbook classic meth-head behaviour.

I personally have little issue with healthy, grown adults taking judicious doses of well-studied anabolics like testosterone enanthate in short cycles (this does not mean I use them myself, and anyone who claims otherwise is more than welcome to put their money where their libelous mouth is and pay for me - and themselves - to get tested). Having said that, I have a pretty poor regard for the risky polypharmacy so prevalent these days, where people of highly questionable intellect self-administer large doses of multiple anabolics, along with a host of associated pharmaceuticals in an often questionable mission to minimize the side effects of the former. Given Johnstone's extremist tendencies and the video footage of him bragging about the large amount of steroids stashed at his bogan batcave, I'm guessing his steroidal endeavours involve a lot more than just short, judicious cycles of enanthate.

As for non-anabolic drugs, I cannot even begin to condone using toxic garbage like cocaine and methamphetamines, both of which Johnstone has also admitted to using. As someone who has never even smoked a cigarette, I just don't get illicit recreational drugs, I really don't. Despite their well-documented decades' long history of screwing people's lives up, millions of people around the world continue to experiment with them, and then act surprised when their lives fall apart and their health turns to shit.

"Hmmm, this junk ruins livers, kidneys and brains, causes people to act psychotic, makes them look like crap, destroys lives and families, and often kills people ... Yep, I think I'll start taking it!"

Fucking brilliant.

And nowhere is this bizarre process of deduction more prevalent than in Australia. The United Nation’s World Drug Report 2014 found Australia had the highest proportion of recreational drug users in the world. Given that, at last count, there were some 188 sovereign countries in the world, that's an absolute disgrace.

The shameful statistics confirmed Australians as the world's most prolific users of ecstasy, third for methamphetamine, and seventh for cannabis. Australia ranked second only to the US for addiction to opioids such as codeine and morphine, the use of which was disproportionately high among Australian women[7].

And the real cracker is that, despite living on an island with a very large pool of water separating us from South America, Australians are the world's fourth biggest users of cocaine. Maybe border security should worry less about about Johnny Depp's dogs and Bodybuilding.com packages, and more about containers full of "furniture" from Colombia. Or even better, maybe Australians should just stop snorting toxic shit up their nose.

You know, just a thought.

Lesson #3: Lift Your Driving Game, Australia

The third thing I'd like to address is the truly appalling behaviour of a sadly large proportion of Australian motorists.

To listen to a lot of Australian car drivers, you'd think cyclists are the biggest menace that ever blighted Australian roads.

[SCENARIO: TWO COPS AT THE SCENE OF A DEVASTATING ROAD ACCIDENT]:

COP 1: "So what happened here, Junior Constable Peachfuzz?"

COP 2: "Well, Senior Sargeant Beergut, according to witnesses, this guy on a lightweight racing bicycle ran a red light and hit a semi-trailer. The force of being hit by a 60kg lycra-clad bloke on a 7kg carbon-fiber bicycle caused the 50-tonne truck to fly into the air, overturn, and land upside down on a school bus. This caused both the truck and the bus to explode, causing all buildings within a 75-metre radius to catch fire and burn to the ground. So far we've counted 144 bodies, but we expect there to be more. Also, one of the cyclist's water bottles dislodged and hit a koala."

COP 1: "Fucking cyclists! If they were forced to pay rego fees like us angelic car drivers, none of this would've ever happened!"

Yep, there's a reason why no-one ever accused this country of being an epicentre of intellectual brilliance. It seems the same mentality that could do no better than the terribly lame "Aussie, Aussie, Aussie! Oi, Oi, Oi!" as our international sporting chant also shaped much of the motoring public's view of cyclists.

The reality is that while hundreds of cyclists have been killed by motor vehicles in Australia, the number of car drivers killed after their vehicles were hit by bicycles amounts to a big fat ...

ZERO.

The indisputable fact is that the most common cause of accidents, injury and death to Australian motorists is THEMSELVES and OTHER MOTORISTS.

I repeat: The biggest danger to Australian motorists is THEMSELVES and OTHER MOTORISTS.

To all you Australian drivers: Every time someone leaves their car at home and rides their bike instead, be it for work, shopping or leisure purposes, that is one less missile on the road with the potential to kill YOU, YOUR FAMILY, and YOUR FRIENDS.

Think about it.

Research by the Adelaide and Monash Universities (the latter involving actual camera footage rather than the speculative hogwash that the MUARC unit is so adept at) shows that around 75% of accidents and near-misses between cyclists and drivers are the fault of drivers. Analysis of accidents involving cyclists and motor vehicles in the mainland US and Hawaii have shown similar results, while a study in London found two-thirds of motorists were to blame.

Why?

It's not rocket science, folks. Cyclists are far less likely to act in a manner that could initiate accidents with cars because they have far more to lose. A car driver has the luxury of being encased in a 1,500kg shell comprised of metal, rubber and plastic. A cyclist has no such luxury, and when 70-90kg or so of rider + bike collides with a 1,500 kg+ missile commandeered by some dipshit busy sending SMS messages, it's not hard to work out who will come off second best.

While Johnstone is a complete loser and seems to have a death wish, most of the Australian cycling public does not. It's high time Australian drivers learned a modicum of respect and patience. Not just for cyclists, but for other motorists as well. I've always thought poorly of the standard of driving here in Australia, but after riding in Spain, I find the Australian attitude towards other road users and especially cyclists to be nothing if not appalling. While our clueless, revenue-raising cops hide at the bottom of steep hills, engaged in the patently sleazy activity of booking motorists exceeding our arbitrary and non-evidence-based speed limits by a few KMHs, no-one seems to be doing jack to address the feral, territorial and highly aggressive attitude that is so commonplace among Australian drivers.

Little surprise that while Australian speeding fine revenue continues to reach new highs, the road toll in most Australian states is increasing.

I challenge anyone who is not institutionalized in a psychiatric facility to watch videos like the following, and then repeat with a straight face how it is cyclists who pose the biggest danger on Australian roads:

Folks, give cyclists room. It's not that hard. If Spanish bus drivers were able to safely commandeer massive coaches around me on narrow and incredibly windy roads like the epic ascent out of Sa Calobra (over 20 hairpin turns!), then there's simply no excuse for you not to do the same in a nimble sedan on wider and straighter stretches of road.

And if you can't safely pass a cyclist without allowing a safe gap, then here's a suggestion. It's pretty revolutionary, so you may want to sit down for this:

WAIT UNTIL IT'S SAFE BEFORE YOU PASS.

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, thank you!

No really, thank you!

Aw, c'mon, you're too kind!

In all seriousness, the seemingly simple and commonsense idea of slowing down for a few hundredths of a second to allow a cyclist to get past an obstruction like a parked car is just beyond the reality of many Australian motorists. Instead, as if possessed, they'll either hold steady or even stomp on the accelerator and squeeze past you, placing your life in very real danger lest you wobble a few inches off course from the resultant shock.

As for expecting these reckless, impatient grumps to hold back a bit in the hills until it's safe to pass ... fuggetaboutit. Wherever they're going - the pub? home to watch the cricket? - is so important, so fucking urgent, that they'll even dive into blind corners to get past you. This actually happened to me yesterday - some loon raced past me in his approach to a corner, only to be greeted by a car coming the other way. Thankfully said loon swerved back into the left lane lane in time and nothing came of it, but the irony is that the actual corner itself contained an asphalt shoulder that would have allowed me to pull to the side and let the kamikaze in question past without incident.

But nope, a lot of Australian drivers just can't friggin' wait. They just have to get past you, and they have to get past you NOW, damnit!

After a month in Mediterranean Spain, I came to realize something about Australia:

It's a highly strung country.

Australians still like to view themselves as a happy-go-lucky bunch, but a few days on Melbourne roads will quickly dismiss that stereotype. Far from being a carefree people, we live in a stressful, consumerist culture where everyone seems to be trapped on the debt treadmill. Everything is expensive, including our utilities and real estate, which currently rank among the most costly in the world. We live in an over-governed nanny-state, ruled by a bunch of pork-barrelling sleazeballs with the temerity to tell us the "age of entitlement is over", while they continue to do everything from using helicopters for short trips that could have easily been completed by car, to enjoying lifelong salaries after they leave office - all at the public's expense.

Last year I read about a recent survey that ranked Australia the eighth happiest nation in the world (the Danes, apparently, were the cheeriest of all). As soon as I read that, two words entered my mind:

"Fuck off."

Followed by:

"Seriously, just fuck off."

We've got the highest rate of drug use in the world, we have twice the suicide rate of countries like Italy and Spain, we had to introduce special laws to deal with a plague of random king hit attacks, and our capital cities are now home to the kind of psychotic driving and road rage that years ago most Australians would've only ever seen in a Hollywood action movie. But we're in the top ten cheeriest nations?

Yeah, no worries.

Either that survey was put together by the same jokers responsible for the polls predicting "NO" to a Brexit and a runaway Hillary Clinton win, or most of the Australian respondents were stoned when they filled in the questionnaire.

Lesson #4: If You Can Afford it, Educate Your Kids Overseas

One of the common arguments cited by the anti-cycling brainiacs is that "cyclists do not belong on the road".

Remember my comment about no-one ever accusing this country of being a hotbed of intellectual brilliance? That's due to a couple of factors:

1. Australia does not have a learning culture. A regrettably large number of Australians would rather watch cricket or get drunk than read a book. That's not entirely their fault, for reasons to be discussed in factor #2:

2. The Australian education system sucks. A recent international comparison of education standards shows Australia is getting creamed, not only by Asian countries like Singapore, Japan, Chinese Taipei, Korea and Hong Kong, but even Kazakhstan — the Central Asian country satirised in that horseshit Sacha Baron Cohen film Borat.

Anyone who can retain the natural curiosity and inquisitiveness characteristic of children after surviving 10 or more years of the substandard, stultifying Australian education system is a special individual. Heck, anyone who emerges with decent reading and grammar skills is pretty unique. Employers frequently complain that even university graduates can't spell or structure sentences properly, and a 2008 survey found 47% - almost half - of Australians were functionally illiterate!

"That means they can't read the instructions on a medicine bottle, they can't read a map, they can't read a recipe," laments Jan Richards, manager of Central West Libraries in NSW.

If Australians struggle to read a recipe or the instruction label on their bottle of anti-depressants, don't expect them to read the road rules for their respective state. If they did, they'd learn that the right of cyclists to ride on the roads is enshrined in law. To illustrate this point, let's take a look at the laws in South Australia, where the Doucherider vs BMW Alpina incident occurred.

Australian states either incorporate the Australian Road Rules or feature their own partially modified variant. Here's S14 and S15A from the ARR as reprinted in the SA regulations, which define what a "road user" and a "vehicle" are:

South Australian legislation, and the ARR upon which it rests, clearly state a rider is a road user, and that a bicycle is a vehicle. So too is a horse and cart and a motorized wheelchair. Speaking of horse and cart, another common retort by the anti-cycling geniuses is that roads were made for cars, not bicycles. Actually, they were originally made for horses. As for bicycles, they were invented before motor vehicles. If modern roads are not adequately designed for cyclists, that's hardly the fault of cyclists - it's the fault of road designers and the governments who steal so much of our money in the form of taxes, fees, fines, levies etc, etc, and then give us such a terribly deficient road system in return.

So when Australian motorists claim cyclists do not belong on the road, they are not expressing the law but their own personal ignorance and bigotry. Imagine if they tried applying this logic in other areas:

JUDGE: "Why did you stab the victim when he was minding his own business and posing absolutely no threat to you, Mr Shiftycock?"

DEFENDANT: "Because he was wearing a One Direction t-shirt, Your Honour."

JUDGE: "What?!"

DEFENDANT: "He was wearing a One Direction t-shirt."

JUDGE: "That hardly constitutes grounds for fatally wounding someone, Mr Shiftycock."

DEFENDANT: "Oh yes it does, Your Honour! I don't like One Direction, and therefore people who wear One Direction t-shirts shouldn't be on the footpath!"

Australia, The Clever Country.

Not.

Lesson #5: Some Cyclists are Idiots Too.

Before I kick this section off, I want to point out something that would be bleedingly obvious in a country where half the people weren't semi-literate:

Cyclists are only human.

This means that, just like motorists who make earnest mistakes on the road, cyclists sometimes make earnest mistakes too. Sometimes they misjudge the speed of an oncoming vehicle, sometimes they don't even see that vehicle until it's too late. As with motorists who make honest mistakes, this falls under the categories of human error and incompetence, not malice arising from an evil two-wheeled conspiracy to take over the country's road system.

Let he who has not sinned ...

Now that we've got that out the way, it's time to acknowledge a disappointing reality: More than a few cyclists act like idiots on the road, too.

In Victoria and South Australia, cyclists are legally allowed to ride two abreast. But sadly, the same education system that produces PhDs with crap English skills and dipshit drivers who think a lightweight Colnago is more dangerous than a supercharged Monaro with P-plates, also produces a not insignificant number of cyclists who can't count.

If there's one thing that pisses motorists off, it's driving along, only to be slowed to a crawl by a group of cyclists unnecessarily riding 3 or more abreast. A sin, I know for a fact, that Johnstone and his selfish riding buddies are 100% guilty of.

And let's be honest - while riding two abreast might be legal, there are circumstances where it's just not a good idea. You know, like in the middle of corners on narrow, windy roads. On a recent trip to Adelaide during the Tour Down Under, I decided to go for a ride along scenic Gorge Road to Gumeracha. On the way back, I came into a bend and couldn't believe what I was seeing up ahead: Two female riders riding two abreast, with one in the middle of the lane and the other sitting on the dividing white lines and at one point actually crossing over them into the oncoming lane (note to the PC crowd: Testosterone is not a prerequisite for foolhardy behaviour).

This was in the middle of a corner, for chrissakes! I ended up passing them on the inside, because passing them on the outside would have meant riding in the centre of the oncoming lane! There was simply no excuse for them not to be sitting to the left of the road, and if a car had approached at speed in either direction, things could've gotten real ugly, real quick.

It's people like this who help worsen the already struggling public image of cyclists. While the rest of us do the right thing, stick to the left, use hand signals to indicate our intentions to motorists, and give a friendly wave or thumbs up when motorists do the right thing, you idiots are out there stubbornly undoing all our good work.

Fair's fair, folks. You want respect on the roads? Then you unrepresentative numbskulls should wise up, show some respect yourself, and stop making things worse for the rest of us.

As for Harley Johnstone, why don't you just fuck off back to Thailand, asshole? That Today Tonight story, while alerting thousands of people to what a complete jackass you are, is now threatening to set back cyclist-motorist relations in this country a millennium or so. While Australian cyclists have reacted to that video by almost unanimously rejecting you as an unrepresentative disgrace, and while a lot of the comments on the Today Tonight Facebook page are by people wise to your stupidity and the idiocy of your fanatical vegan ideology, those comments also contain a frighteningly large number of nutters expressing some pretty disturbing anti-cycling sentiment.

Before I sign off, it would be remiss of me not to give credit where credit is due. I want to say a humongous Thank You! to all the decent Australian motorists who are abiding by the new laws, and giving us cyclists a safe berth when they pass. Believe me, your courtesy is deeply appreciated. Please, please keep it up. Please ignore all those moron motorists whose diatribes about cyclists would see them charged with hate speech if they were talking about certain other minority groups. And, please, don't ever even begin to think that a puerile waste of space like Harley Johnstone is representative of Australian cyclists.

Ride and drive safe people, we're all in this together,

ciao,

Anthony.

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Anthony Colpo is an independent researcher, physical conditioning specialist, and author of the groundbreaking books The Fat Loss Bible, The Great Cholesterol Con and Whole Grains, Empty Promises.

For more information on Anthony's books, click here.

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The Mandatory “I Ain’t Your Mama, So Think For Yourself and Take Responsibility for Your Own Actions” Disclaimer: All content on this web site is provided for information and education purposes only. Individuals wishing to make changes to their dietary, lifestyle, exercise or medication regimens should do so in conjunction with a competent, knowledgeable and empathetic medical professional. Anyone who chooses to apply the information on this web site does so of their own volition and their own risk. The owner and contributors to this site accept no responsibility or liability whatsoever for any harm, real or imagined, from the use or dissemination of information contained on this site. If these conditions are not agreeable to the reader, he/she is advised to leave this site immediately.

References

Pawlak R, et al. How prevalent is vitamin B(12) deficiency among vegetarians? Nutrition, Feb, 2013; 71 (2): 110-117.

Appleby PN, et al. Mortality in British vegetarians. Public Health Nutrition, 2002; 5 (1): 29–36. Available online: http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/78/3/533S.full

Burkert NT, et al. Nutrition and Health – The Association between Eating Behavior and Various Health Parameters: A Matched Sample Study. PLoS ONE, 2014; 9 (2): e88278. Available online: http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0088278

Michalak J, et al. Vegetarian diet and mental disorders: results from a representative community survey. International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity, 2012; 9: 67.

Baines S, et al. How does the health and well-being of young Australian vegetarian women compare with non-vegetarians? Public Health Nutrition, 2007; 10 (5): 436–442.

Ibid.

United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. World Drug Report 2014. unodc.org. Available online: http://www.unodc.org/documents/wdr2014/World_Drug_Report_2014_web.pdf

Source: http://anthonycolpo.com/breaking-news-harley-durianrider-johnstone-in-disgraceful-road-rage-incident/

[thedailychalkboard]

Look Up - Look Around

Existing in a society where the current emotional machinery is lubricated by intense negativity is often a stressful endeavor and maintaining a positive mindset can be downright exhausting. Like a sea of toxic polluted thought, the waves of hearsay, half truths and outright falsehoods crash onto the clean beaches of reason and contemplation.

While the masses are being mentally and physically pummeled by the purveyors of all that is wrong and coerced into believing that the world is failing, flailing and falling apart, there are those who endeavor to retain balance. These few folks stand as stalwart illuminating pillars of reason, holding up the virtues of what is right, worthy honest and true.

These pillars of emotional intelligence do their best to toss life lines to those who flounder in the darkened waters of coercion and misdirection. A few souls do grab hold while the vast majority ignores the hope and reason tossed in their direction and sink into the depths of a miserable mind numbing mediocre oblivion.

I’m sure I’ve lost a good fifty percent or more of my readers with these first few paragraphs. For those of you who have made the conscious and deliberate choice to press on I applaud and ensure you that there is good to be had and a positive purpose, worth your time, behind this editorial piece. Let’s dive right in.

I consider myself to be firmly rooted as one of those pillars I write about. I wouldn’t bother sharing the stuff you read here if I didn’t think it was so. I certainly wouldn’t waste my limited bank account of time on this earth to share things with you that I feel are helpful, meaningful and even potentially life changing if I didn’t feel it was important that I do so.

To be clear there’s no ego involved in what I do and why I write and share. It is simply a fact that there are people who wouldn’t give the slightest inclination to stopping and thinking, let alone contemplating, the things I write about. It’s either something they haven’t considered worthy of contemplation or are just too consumed by the rat race trap of making somebody else a living instead of understanding how and why it is so important to make a life for them self. My only goal and purpose is to be instrumental in changing these things. I call it helping people find their Smile.

To be absolutely up front, I’m not asking for money. I’m asking for something much more precious than any financial transaction can ever be. I am asking you to spend of your account of time to contemplate, learn and share with others, so we will all be better off. This stuff is very easy to think about and to understand. In fact it is so easy in concept and in practice that very few people even consider it worthy of thinking about, let alone putting into practice. Let me give you a personal example.

Very recently I was picking up some necessities from a local franchise grocery store. Lines are long here because the perception is that prices are cheap. It’s not uncommon to find yourself spending more than a few minutes in line with plenty of time to begin seriously sorting through your email in-box or some other mundane informational chore most of us find ourselves putting off until never.

This day was no exception at my local “ginormagrocerymart”. I found myself behind a woman with a full basket as she continued filling an already full grocery conveyor. I had two items in my cart, neatly stacked and easy to see. A quick furtive glance in my direction was enough to confirm, in my mind anyway, that she was fully aware of my presence. This is when things began to fall apart in my mind.

 I’m of a frame of mind that if the person behind me in a busy store has less than five items, and I have a cart with twice to three times that amount, the neighborly and considerate thing to do is to ask, even insist in a friendly way, that they go before me. Good karma notwithstanding, I feel this is a way of acknowledging the fact that others have value in my eyes and that I recognize and appreciate their existence and circumstances at the moment. Nowhere have I ever seen a written rule that states that I must know someone for any length of time to be nice and considerate to them. Voices of my own making in my head began making things worse. “Why the hell didn’t she notice that I can be done in thirty seconds, when it’s going to take her a good five minutes to get her stuff checked through?” the voices began to demand. They went on; “What is it that keeps some people from being nice when they have an opportunity to do so literally staring them right in the face?” Yep, I was staring at her too. Then a slight grin began to form in both my mind and on my face.

 I took a breath, and mentally stepped back. The self induced voices in my head calmed and I began to do more observing and less mental chastisement and silent, pointed, accusation. We’re all different in how we react to certain situations and outside stimuli. I know that emotional rants in my mind can have the intense adrenaline rising exhilaration of a dozen ‘Transformer’ and ‘Fast and Furious’ movies combined if I allow things get out of control. I also know that this is about as healthy as proverbially joining ‘The Fight Club’ and being the only person you’ll ever be fighting. Instead I opted out and made a conscious decision to create a learning experience out of this opportunity and not a personally, anger inducing negative one. Later, as I reviewed in my mind what had happened, the idea of Intellectual Lemonade was born.

The woman who had, or hadn’t, taken notice of me behind her, with my two items, stacked neatly in my basket, appeared to be in her mid to late-sixties, longer gray hair worn loose, tall, thin, tanned, distinguished in a rancher’s sort of way. She wore clean, well fitting, faded but non- designer jeans and a no nonsense practical shirt. It was easy to assume that she came by that jean fading honestly. She could have rolled her grocery cart out to her old Ford pickup, with the attached horse trailer and drove away leaving a thin trail of blue smoke from its tailpipe and it would have completed the story I was building in my mind at the moment. That’s what I mean by distinguished in a rancher’s sort of way.

She liked dogs, or had dogs, or maybe she was taking care of someone’s dogs. At any rate she had several large cans of dog food and two bags of dry dog food, a few other edible items and one that caught my eye in particular; a case of imported beer. I had two bags of cat litter in my cart, stacked neatly, easy to see. She was tall. As I pondered her choice in beer she began to explain to the cashier that she had a coupon for one of the bags of dog food. This took an extra minute maybe as they sorted things out. My eyes went to the two items in my cart. Thirty seconds tops. But, I was now into full blown observational mode and had more or less abandoned my initial snap judgmental hyperbole.

As the groceries beeped their way into her ownership she began bagging them. It’s at this point that I noticed she was pulling out her own cloth bags in which to place her purchases. Scratch the old Ford pickup. Now I pictured her silently exiting the parking lot in some dusty but new, expensive yet practical, compact fuel efficient hybrid SUV. She had dog food, imported beer, coupons, and brought her own cloth grocery bags. I had cat litter, which I didn’t need a bag for. I relished the cheap plastic store bags though, and always double bagged at my wife’s request. She loves those bags because they’re so great for scooping up and disposing cat poop in. I did mention I had two bags of cat litter, neatly stacked in my shopping cart and easy to see. I drive a notably fuel inefficient yet affordable used H3 Hummer. It carries lots of cat litter.

I’d nearly forgotten about my recent adrenaline rush when who I assume to be the ginormagrocerymart’s assistant store manager came along, noticed the lengthening lines, and conveniently invited the people behind me in line to accompany him to an unused register and began to check them through. Two items, neatly stacked, cat litter, plain sight, no imported beer. I sighed and thought to myself; “Yes. Lightning can strike a person, in the same spot, twice, in the same day.” Of course it could very well be that the ginormagrocerymart’s assistant manager just doesn’t like cats. And here I stand with not one, but two bags of cat litter, neatly stacked in my cart.”

The tall sixty-something distinguished in a rancher’s way gray haired woman in the well worn but clean faded jeans who had all the groceries in front of me was writing a check. I noticed when she had to ask the checker the date because she didn’t know it. She was still finishing her cloth bagging chores as I quickly paid for my two neatly stacked bags of cat litter. I was in and out in less than a minute when I finally got to the cash register. I only regret I didn’t get to see what she was driving. I have to admit that imported beer looked mighty good. It was a hot day.

So what did I learn and why did this happen? I can’t answer the last part of my question with certainty, but I can certainly answer the first part. Perception becomes reality when we allow it to influence or override our senses, observation, intuition and better judgment.  My reality was initially affected by the actions of the woman in front of me. My perception was that she didn’t care that I was behind her and felt her needs were more important than mine. Had she looked up and around both our realities and perceptions would have changed; mine for the better and hers as well. There is nothing more rewarding than doing something nice for someone else, period, end of story.

  Our reality can change simply by being aware and alert to opportunity and acting upon our intuition and better judgment. I've determined that my initial reality was not helping me or anyone else. I took action to change my reality by replacing my negative perception with observation. I deflected any misplaced animosity towards her by engaging myself in this exercise of discovery. Had she observed better, perhaps my reality would have been different, and my initial impression wouldn’t have been negative. Had the assistant store manager used his training in the power of observation to a better degree, then perhaps he wouldn’t have engaged in the line of least resistance and would have asked me if I would like to change register lines.

We determine how we act and react in any given situation. We cannot blame anyone but our self no matter what the circumstances, for the emotions we feel, how we act and how we react. As much as we wish it were not so we are responsible for our feelings and how we make others feel around us. It is critical that we understand and embrace this. People are unhappy because of their own actions, interactions and reactions, not those of someone else.

  These lessons are ongoing in life. Not one of us is perfect and each one of us is tried and tested daily on the actions we take or don’t and the reactions we have to the actions and reactions of others around us. If lemons are going to become lemonade we must pay attention, stay alert, work constantly to do and be our very best and learn to live with our mistakes and those of our fellow human beings.

I learned one additional valuable lesson during these few short minutes spent in line at the grocery store. Look up and look around. Reality is what you can touch and what can touch you. When you can begin to touch another person’s heart you’ve started the journey to mastering this thing we call life.

#michaeldavis

©2017 Michael D. Davis  All Rights Reserved

Michael D. Davis is a communicator by vocation, a mentor by avocation and a social media maven by choice. His work can be found on popular channels on the web and on his blog at http://thedailychalkboard.tumblr.com/  Michael welcomes your comments and invites you to join him. Just Google #michaelddavis or #thedailychalkboard to find him and request to connect.

.

[hydratedlife]

How is anyone making this into the worst case of idol treatment ever? I failed to see the line in the post you reblogged. Sure BTS are treated better than many SM or other artists, no one is denying that. That post however is about Jin and Bighit. Not about SM. Not about their artist. How does other people's worse treatment justify being silent about issues they care about concerning their fav? BECAUSE people care they want to avoid Jin leaving, feeling depressed and be unhappy.

Ok. I want to start this off by saying that before you send hate or get mad please read this entire post or at least the bold parts. This is taken out of context. And it was never in my reblog because it wasn’t necessary. I mentioned this when I replied to someone else. A Jin stan literally told me that no other idol suffers from extreme bias as much as Jin does which is an absolutely insane statement. I’m not going to mention her because she’s very young and I don’t want to bring her into this. I am also replying to all of this, not because I want to bring people down because you’re allowed to feel how you feel, but I’m sick of seeing people spread misinformation and cause other people to become worried and not fully understand a story objectively. I’m not forcing you to agree with me.

Also to think that I’m being a hater and that I don’t care about mistreatment of idols… Jessica is my ultimate bias. That should say something. And to call me a Jin anti is just an assumption people seem to like making. I love and support Jin as much as all the other members of BTS. 

First, there are seriously people going around here comparing Jin’s situation to Tao, Kris and Luhan and DBSK. Like I don’t even feel like I have to explain how ridiculous and disrespectful that is. Disrespectful to these guys for trivialising their extremely serious and appalling situations. Disrespectful to Bighit for accusing them of this extreme abuse and illegal actions that is clearly not happening(even if you think he’s being mistreated it’s clearly nowhere near as extreme as what SM did to them). And also disrespectful to Jin, spreading that he’s this victim that suffers every day in BTS and doesn’t belong in his group and that no one cares about him. I’ve also been seeing people saying he should leave the group and others saying he could sue them. I’m sure if Jin saw those comments he definitely wouldn’t be jumping for joy at this borderline offensive attempt at “supporting” him (this is only directed at people comparing him to the aforementioned artists not general worried Jin stans).

But like if you saw, I’ve been a kpop fan for over 8 years now. BTS are probably the most well-treated big group I have ever seen in my time. If someone can name me a successful group that has received better treatment then I’ll be willing to accept that. The reason I compared is for something called perspective, NOT to silence anyone. When you’re in your own little world where you only stan one or two groups, a small thing can seem huge when in reality it’s not. So by comparing, I am trying to give you perspective on what the kpop industry is and how it works. I don’t deny that Jin doesn’t get treated as well as he should. Yes he is neglected as a vocalist and all around not well promoted. But to call it abuse is ridiculous. And to make a callout post is quite dramatic. 

To give an example, Jin is a visual so he is there to look good. As much as we don’t like that, that’s his role. I REALLY like his voice (and I’ve talked about him having a great voice and his vocal technique before) and I wish he had more lines too and I understand the frustration as a fan but he was not put in the group to be a highly-featured singer. And to put things into perspective, look at majority of other groups and their visual. Yoona, Dara or Seolhyun for example, get one maybe two lines per song. Fans may like their voice but they’re also not there to be singers. Although, at least those girls were pushed in other areas (cfs, dramas, variety shows) which I believe that they are neglecting in Jin’s case and they should put more effort into pushing him more in those areas. Idk why but I feel like Bighit is confused and are trying to push Taehyung as a visual as well, which is stupid on their part because Jin needs a clear role that he can excel at and be known for. So Bighit is being messy as hell with that but it’s their job to figure out because schedules are business decisions and international fans cannot change that as cfs, tv shows etc. are all for korean audiences. If you want to push that, you have to talk to the korean fandom.

Someone also called out out Bighit for calling him fat and forcing him to diet. Which is awful and I don’t agree with this AT ALL and you’re right, it can lead to depression. But once again, you need perspective. Calling someone fat so easily is a cultural thing and every idol gets told that which is why a lot of them suffer from depression (along with many other reasons like high stress, antis, media, no social life etc). And most idols, particularly every female idol is on crazy, unhealthy diets. Which still DOES NOT justify it but basically, what I’m saying is that whether it’s because of korean culture or just idol culture, what people are upset about cannot be fixed by saying “please stop this” especially from foreigners because its the entire culture that needs to change and that’s a much bigger issue which is sad. And to agree with Jin stans again, I do think calling out Bighit for unhealthy diets is helpful, as I’ve seen fans of other idols make a big deal about it and many companies don’t want to be seen as so unethical and things sometimes get better (at least on the companies part but what an idol chooses to do on their own shouldn’t be credited to the company). 

The last point I’ve seen a lot is talking about Jin’s neck injury although no one knows what really happened. In Bighit’s history they’ve always let the boys rest when they have an injury and I can’t imagine why they would force Jin specifically to perform especially when he isn’t a main vocal or dancer. If they let Jungkook, who sings like 50% of the lines, rest then idk why not Jin. If what people are saying is true about Jin’s neck situation then that’s gross of Bighit and should be called out, but to know barely any of the facts and then take that to make assumptions and accuse a company of abuse is hurtful not only for a company but for BTS being under that company.

So to sum this up, what I said was taken out of context. I don’t disagree with everything Jin stans are saying, I just believe it’s blown out of proportion. And I am certainly not a “Bighit stan” if that’s a thing? It’s like you get crucified for not always seeing things from the same viewpoint as everyone else. I will defend a business for making smart business decisions whether fans like it or not. I am currently completing my business degree and we literally discuss similarsituations of employee ill-treatments. So sue me for actually taking a look at how the business works and why they make certain decisions. He is also a grown man with enough freedom in their company to communicate whether he is unhappy or not and you shouldn’t speak on his behalf in a situation like this but that's up to you and how you choose to handle things. 

You can attack me personally and shade me all you like but I much prefer to have a conversation with someone even if we disagree as it’s much less toxic. You also don’t need to block me for having a different opinion…

[propertyofmusicwhore]

Still Standing by Kaitlyn

I understand that a lot of people are angry, and some hurt (myself) in regards to Kaitlyn. However, the Kaitlyn we saw in this last chapter (chapter 12) of The Freshman, is not Kaitlyn, not the one we know and love. These are NOT her “true colors”, as Zig says. 

Please, fellow Kaitlyn daters, hear me out. 

Aside from being a very observant person innately, I am also a psych grad, and a writer myself. Details are important, and so are patterns when it comes to behavior. There are patterns with Kaitlyn, and also outliers. The behavior Kaitlyn presented in the last chapter was not only an outlier but a defense mechanism, as well.  Kaitlyn is not an innately selfish person who only thinks about herself. Erase that from your mind about Kaitlyn being selfish, because her patterns of behavior (meaning behaviors she’s done often) say the exact opposite. Think back to the Kaitlyn who was the mastermind and took the initiative to paint C-H-R-I-S on the tummy’s of her friends to cheer up his golden boy, think back to the Kaitlyn who gave up on being part of the sorority because her friends didn’t get in even though she wanted to be part of it so bad, think back to the Kaitlyn who would swallow up her own feelings for you and hear you out about your other love interests and just pretend to be okay to put your feelings first, and there’s so many more times! Even though Chris called her concert “dumb” and everyone made her birthday party about everything else BUT Kaitlyn that night, and not once did she complain. All of her behavioral patterns point to the fact that she is selfless by nature. She is NOT selfish.  What else can we observe about Kaitlyn? She puts on a mask to belong. The whole “party girl” mask, even though she is actually a loner, and was only pushed by her father to be less of that, recall when she confessed to you by saying that the things her father put her into only helped ‘somewhat’. The “straight girl” mask for her parents, especially for her father. The “I can be edgy and bad-ass” mask for her band. She’s done this many times, we’ve seen it. But behind all of those masks, she only shows YOU the real Kaitlyn, when she breaks down and really opens up to you to tell you about her fears, her true thoughts and feelings: she’s alone, she’s afraid, she’s hurt, she feels like she doesn’t belong, and she also feels PRESSURED (her dad on her case a lot), is EASILY INFLUENCED (the need to be a party girl in college, bad-ass for her band), and is also quite NAIVE (unaware of how people feel about her, example: Arjun). When these three things (in caps) are combined, she enters into her defensive mechanism, or the outlier behavior, meaning she becomes something that is not true to her real self, to her normal patterns. When she felt pressured by her father she also acted out, asked for distance, and was very mean, yet MC would hear her crying in her room each night. The acting out, the mean, the pushing people away is a defense mechanism for when she’s truly hurting, feeling pressured and or overwhelmed by the thoughts in her head, and then behind closed doors, she’d break down freely in tears. Recall when after her and MC made up, she acknowledged that MC had NOTHING to apologize for, and that she understood why MC was doing what she was doing, but that she just shielded herself away because she had no idea how to deal with those emotions without hurting you unintentionally. And currently? There are little instances and references here and there that have pointed to the fact that her band is also “on her case” a lot just like her dad. I think the most obvious one would be at the cafe, when she looked towards Rachel for approval to come towards MC. That is a SERIOUS red flag, feeling like she’s not cool enough for the band when she wanted to go shopping for clothes to more fit into the band (she mentioned feeling not cool enough many times). Knowing what we know about Kaityn being easily pressured, easily influenced, and naive, and also looking for a place where she can belong, it makes perfect sense to me that her band (especially Natasha and Rachel) are putting things into Kaitlyn’s head. What things? Maybe about how her friends are not really supporting her, and probably even doubts about her relationship with MC and how close she’s gotten to Zigs lately maybe? Which would subconsciously make Kaitlyn distance herself more without even noticing even though she meant it whens she said she would do the weekly dates and make more time for MC. The things she said to MC in chapter 12 were completely out of nowhere from the perspective of MC, and so they HAD to be growing up inside of Kaitlyn through other sources (the band), which is why MC was taken off guard and perceived what Kaitlyn was saying as absolutely random, but in Kaitlyn’s head they weren’t. The clues of these thoughts growing inside Kaitlyn’s head as she spent more time with the band are scattered everywhere throughout Book 3. Not to mention, the accusations Kaitlyn was throwing at MC seemed a lot like a projection to me (example, accusing MC of being jealous, even though it seemed like Kaitlyn was the jealous one). When Kaitlyn locked eyes with MC and saw her with Zigs as he pulled her up from the floor from her arms, that is what I thought pissed her off and ignited everything else that came after, in combination with whatever her band-mates had been feeding into her head prior, and then the rest of the things she said to MC seemed like just an excuse to start something and to release the anger her band-mates had stirred up with their influence and doubts. She accused MC of being overly jealous, yet pointed out the friendship of Zigs and MC more times than needed, probably because she was jealous and insecure herself, and then got upset at MC for things that she previously thanked MC for in the past, almost as if every good deed MC had done for Kaitlyn had been twisted to actually being bad by an external source (the band-mates), and then to just ask for space so suddenly and out of nowhere just because of a brawl that MC didn’t even start, almost as if the idea had been premeditated and suggested to her prior -- not sure if you guys are following my drift here. I believe Kaitlyn was being genuinely honest with MC the day of babysitting -- she wouldn’t give you up for the world and would even leave the band for you. THAT is the real Kaitlyn, the one who is vulnerable with you, and begs you to the point of no shame, the one who bites her lip and gets easily teared up at the mere thought of losing you. The behavior we saw in the last chapter is an outlier, not the true Kaitlyn. An absolute outlier and defense mechanism brought out by a horrible and behind the curtains pressure, bad influence in combination with her naivety. And THAT is what I truly believe. She is a victim, and she needs saving. She probably went home that night, looked into a mirror and not recognize herself and curse all of the horrible things she said to MC and wonder who the hell that was that night of the concert to speak to you like that, and then cry just as she did before. I know she did. All the while still feeling trapped and chained up like a puppy to the bullies that are Rachel and Natasha.  In other news, I personally think Abbie made it worse and gave Rachel and Natasha fuel to pollute Kaitlyn’s mind further. The night of the “intervention”, Kaitlyn probably left that night and told Nat and Rach all about it, and they just turned it into something toxic into Kaitlyn’s mind. I re-read the scene where the band teased Tyler, and it really was just rough teasing because there are just some people that joke like that, and they just expect for you to tease right back, and it’s no big deal. I know, because I gently bully friends and sometimes even people I just met but just jokingly. Not defending them, they’re both still asses, but in that moment, I think Abbie overreacted. I agree that Abbie blew that out of proportion and should have just let it go a long time ago. And I understand that she’s concerned for Kaitlyn, but as a college grad, when you belong to clubs or any other college activity, you DO tend to sacrifice those classes that you can just study for at home. I really don’t think it was Abbie’s place to do an intervention on Kaitlyn, while MC could have just used that time to freaking shower together with Kaitlyn or spend time with her. Instead, she gives into Abbie’s “wannabe mother” role. And I love Abbie to death, but like I said, totally unnecessary and was probably fuel for Rachel and Natasha to twist things further in Kaitlyn’s mind.  These are my two cents. I’m hoping for a nice redemption arc for Kaitlyn, and some understanding of who she truly is, and her tendency to fall into pressure and act out, but that doesn’t mean those acting out moments are who she truly is. She just needs saving and help, she needs someone to get her away from the pressuring people, from the “on her case” people, and to get her away from the people who expect her to be something else other than just herself. I think that is what is truly the problem here and the true villain here. So, please... love Kaitlyn. Please! Don’t give up on her!   When it comes to everyone else, though... Zach is truly the real MVP.  Chris has no excuse. As I said, Kaitlyn and everyone else were THERE for him. Who organized the cheer for his football game? Kaitlyn. Who was his campaign manager even though she was going through her coming out with her parents? Kaitlyn. Yet, he has the audacity to call her concert ‘dumb’, forgetting Kaitlyn’s birthday, forgetting about everyone else really but himself, and even though he is doing something for a good cause, this is how he’s always been. He’s ALWAYS blown off MC, and he’s ALWAYS been thinking about his own problems while coming off as the “good guy”, when he’s really just annoyingly self righteous in my opinion. Please tell me how I’m wrong. Don’t worry, I’ll wait. Yes, he had some issues growing up, but he now has a full on scholarship, is the president of his class, and he’s white, and he’s male.  James? He’s ALWAYS placed his work and passion for his work above everything else, including entangling MC, without prior notice or consent, to being his fiance just to cover from his parents. Of course MC agreed much later, but the point is this is how he’s always been. It’s all about his work, and that’s okay. I respect that. But it’s not surprising. This IS his normal pattern. Same with Chris.  The one true sufferer here, the one true selfless person, and the one person who is NOT being themselves, and who is NOT showing their normal pattern, is Kaitlyn. Point blank. I’m gonna save her, she’s going to be redeemed, I’m not giving up on her, she is truly precious, and I stand by her, because just like Kaitlyn, I also would not give this up for the world.  Also, what the hell is up with Zigs knowing MC is in a committed relationship, but trying to flirt with her and make a move on her every chance he gets? I’m down with his anger problems because of his past. I don’t mind that, and I embrace it and I would love to help him, but hitting on someone who is taken who is in the exact same friend circle that you’ve been welcomed into... kind of a douchey thing. Just saying. 

[idolimagines]

Mad: Part 10

“We’re all a little crazy on the inside. Some are just better at hiding it than others.”

Warning: Contains graphic sexual content

Teaser  Part 1  Part 2  Part 3  Part 4  Part 5  Part 6  Part 7  Part 8  Part 9  Part 11

You blinked your dry eyes a few more times, not believing what you were seeing as you were in a state of shock. “BamBam isn’t dead.” You whispered to yourself, lost in thought while you stared at his picture on the screen.

“Y/N! What are you doing?” You suddenly heard, causing you to jump at the loud voice and snap your head back towards your doorway – and as you did you suddenly felt frozen as you saw none other than Jinyoung standing right there, catching you in the act.

Upon seeing him your breaths became short and panicked as your eyes flickered back to your computer, seeing as BamBam’s picture was on the screen. “D-did you know about this?” You hesitantly asked while pointing towards the screen and looking back to Jinyoung. You watched as his face grew stiff, pressing his lips firmly together and eyes drawing into the screen before suddenly moving towards you. “You shouldn’t be looking at that,” he urged while grabbing the cord of the computer and attempting to unplug it.

“Why not!” You shouted as you desperately yanked his hand away from the cord. “What is going on here Jinyoung? Who is Julius Swintek and why is BamBam listed as dead?” The words left your mouth in a rush while you stood there and guarded the computer. Your eyes were narrowed, shooting daggers at him as your brief moment of panic had quickly turned into anger as you realized that Jinyoung had known what’s been going on all along. Feeling defeated, Jinyoung took a moment of hesitation, knowing there was no way he was getting around this before backing up and momentarily leaving you. He stepped out in the hall for a moment, letting his eyes scan the empty hall in reassurance before closing your door, leaving the two of you inside for privacy.

“Who told you about that?” The doctor asked in a hush whisper as he stood on the other side of your desk. “It doesn’t matter,” you answered, not wanting to risk BamBam’s safety if you truthfully revealed his name. “I know there’s something going on around here and I want to know what it is. Who is Julius Swintek and what does he have to do with BamBam?” The repeated words left your mouth in a hurry as you were desperate for answers.

Jinyoung took a deep breath before shooting you a glance, wishing he wasn’t in this situation as he was risking a lot just by even talking about this. “It’s better if you didn’t know Y/N,” he merely stated and you tilted your head back, obnoxiously scoffing in response. “Wow so you do know what’s going on then.” You commented with a firm stare. “Gah, I thought of all people I could trust you to tell me.”

Jinyoung furrowed his thick brows as the frown on his face grew more distinctive, “Y/N I’m telling you this so you won’t get involved-”

“I already am involved!” You argued, giving him a wide-eyed look as you couldn’t believe what you were hearing. “…and I know more than you think.” You angrily announced. “I’ve talked to these prisoners, I know what’s really going on here but I’ve never heard about a Julius Swintek until now.”

“He’s not important,” Jinyoung tried to persuade but you weren’t having it as you angrily shook your head. “That’s bullshit and you know it,” you snapped, nearly slamming your fist on the desk in front of you as you were tired of the endless lies. “He has the same last name as the warden – that just can’t be a coincidence can it?” The sarcastic response harshly left your mouth as you stood there, waiting.

But instead you were surrounded by silence as Jinyoung was frozen, suddenly looking helpless as he couldn’t form a proper response to your comment. He wasn’t sure what exactly to expect from this as he had caught you accident, merely passing by your office on the way to his before seeing BamBam’s picture blown up on your computer screen. At first he was going to scold you, to just hope you wouldn’t say anything and that’d be the end of it. But now he was speechless as you had known far too much than you were supposed to.

Without another word, Jinyoung turned around and opened the door to your office, trying to make an escape and avoid further questions before Brooke suddenly barged in. “Y/N what the hell did you tell BamBam-” she angrily announced, not caring to knock on the door one knock on the door before realizing she was interrupting something. “Oh – what’s going on here?” She asked, letting her eyes flicker between both you and Jinyoung.

In an instant you exited out of the article, not leaving any evidence before she could see what you were up to.

“Nothing,” Jinyoung lied and you rolled your eyes, letting out an annoyed groan as you stared at Brooke. “Perfect timing that you suddenly show up.” You spat. “Aren’t you still supposed to be in your session with BamBam?” You further asked, causing her lip to frown. “It ended short since he wouldn’t talk to me,” Brooke hastily answered, giving you an exchange of glares as she came forward. “Now you wouldn’t have anything to do with that would you?”

“You still saw BamBam after we told you not to?” Jinyoung cautiously interjected.

“I was only grabbing my notebook, I didn’t talk to him.” You lied and Brooke ran her hands over her face and through her hair in frustration. “God, you’re such a liar Y/N! I know you went and told her something.” She accused, causing you grow defensive. “Just like you went and told the warden to transfer BamBam back to your right?” You snapped and her blue eyes widened.

“We’ve already talked about this. I told you I didn’t have anything to do with that,” Brooke defended with a firm stance. “Well then who did-” you demanded before your gaze instinctively went to Jinyoung – who was standing silently towards the corner of the room, looking guilty as his gaze shifted down. With an unswaggering minute you stayed still as your panicked eyes wavered between both Brooke and Jinyoung.

“…It was you…wasn’t it?” You hesitantly asked, needing confirmation as you directed your question to Jinyoung. Brooke followed suit in turning her attention to Jinyoung as well, staring at him in shock as he simply shook his head in response, admitting to the deed. Your lip quivered as you gave him a look of disgust, “Wow,” you mumbled. “So it was you.”

“Jinyoung why did you tell the warden? You were the one to make the switch in the first place,” Brooke’s high pitched voice interjected as she crossed her arms, waiting for Jinyoung to speak. “The warden found out what happened from one of the nurses outside and came looking to me for answers.” He informed with an uncomfortable look. “He was the one who demanded that BamBam be transferred back to Brooke. I didn’t have a choice.” The doctor added, causing you to turn away from him in disbelief.

You let your gaze waver from him, not wanting to be in this toxic room with these people any longer until your eyes suddenly caught sight of the clock, making you remember the session you had scheduled in a few minutes back in Westin Hall. “I have a session soon,” you announced, instantly dropping the previous conversation as you started to make your way out of the office. “Y/N I’m sorry but I didn’t have a choice.” Jinyoung repeated, feeling guilty as you ignored his pleads and walked into the hall. 

Upon hearing his pleads you momentarily stopped in the hall before making a quick turn back to him and Brooke. “You know – for a moment I thought you were on my side. I thought I could trust you.” you admitted, staring at Jinyoung. “But you just proved me wrong.”

~*~

Heavy pants left your mouth as you stormed down the hall before reaching your designated meeting room. Of all the sessions you had scheduled today, you couldn’t remember who you were going to see at this time as you entered the private room, proceeding to slam the door behind you as you were still angry with Jinyoung and Brooke earlier. With an angered grunt, you took a moment to yourself – taking a long deep breath to calm down before finally gazing up to look at the patient before you.

And there he was, looking down to his arm and staring at his tattoos out of boredom before he shifted his attention up to you. “Long time, no see doctor.” The man casually greeted, glancing at you from his usual seat at the table before looking back to his arm. You stood there, letting the darkness of the dim lighting shadow over your figure as you stayed by the door, carefully watching him from the corner of the room before you stalked towards him. The bottoms of your heels clacked against the concrete floor as you came forward, carefully taking out one of the bobby pins in your hair while eyeing his handcuffs. “You’re not a criminal. You don’t need these when you’re with me,” you confessed – slightly bending down to grab his wrist as you unlocked the handcuffs like last time.

Jaebum stayed silent for a second, watching in awe as you left the metal restraints on top of the table. “You’re the only one here who seems to think that,” he bitterly revealed as you spun around the table and sat in the swivel chair in front of him. “Well whether it’s true or not – you’re labeled as a murderer here and unfortunately people are going to believe the worst.” You commented while bringing your hand up to your hair and placing the bobby pin back.

Within seconds of hearing your words Jaebum leaned in closer, “…then what about you doctor? Despite telling you my story do you really believe me or are you just saying that out of some sort of pity?” He asked, letting his voice drop lower as he was growing suspicious. But contrary to his doubt you calmly sat there and without a hint of hesitation kept your eyes on him as you said, “I do believe you – I trust you.”

Within that single second you caught the glint in Jaebum’s eyes, shining in relief as he seemed almost surprised with your honest answer as no one had ever said that to him before. “So then why the angry face?” The handsome man said, easily noticing the scowl you were trying to hide. “It’s not important now- I rather not talk about it. We should plan on how we’re going to get you out of here,” you blatantly answered – trying to avoid the sour subject of your co-workers as you could feel your anger resurfacing from just the thought of them.

Jaebum cocked his head as he shot you an amused look, not letting the topic go away that easy. “You know – you’re quite private for a psychiatrist. Your job is to hear people talk about their problems yet you don’t really talk about yours,” he stated as he relaxed and rested his free hands over the steel table. “I’m not very open when it comes to my own private matters – I guess that’s one thing we have in common.” You confidently sassed back, fascinating Jaebum even more so as the corners of lips curved up into a devilish smirk. “I guess so,” his deep voice agreed in a pleasant hum, “Maybe that’s why I’m so drawn to you.”

His answer caused you to raise an eyebrow in response, finding yourself intrigued as he scooted in closer to you, dipping his head lower to meet yours. Being these close, you caught every feature of his handsome face, admiring the deep brown color of his eyes and gentle curve of his plump lips. Your sight then drifted past his sharp jawline, down his smooth neck and found themselves taking a glimpse of his toned chest underneath the baggy material of his jumpsuit – catching a glimpse of yet another tattoo. He was beautiful – actually more than beautiful as you had never seen anyone like him.

Jaebum quirked a thick eyebrow, nearly smiling from the way you looked at him before he spoke up. “I’ve told you this before but you know – whatever it is, you can tell me doctor.” He assured while placing a finger under your chin and tilting your head up directly to him, letting his lips ghost against your own. “I can keep a secret, it’s not like I have anyone to tell.” Jaebum admitted with a tempting whisper. 

Your eyes fluttered close for a second, getting lost in the sound of his smooth voice before resisting temptation and pulling back. “Hmm, I don’t know,” you teasingly answered while leaning back in your chair, getting comfortable and rubbing the back of your neck while you fully closed your eyes before you suddenly felt a new pair of hands on you. “You seem stressed, doctor.” Jaebum calmly announced as his rough hands grazed the clothed surface of your shoulders. “Jaebum, what are you doing?” You hummed as you soon put your own hands down, letting them rest by your sides.

“I’m just helping you relax,” Jaebum coolly answered, trying to sound innocent since you couldn’t see the mischievous smirk across his face. You were about to object before his hands suddenly hit a sore spot in the crevice of your neck and shoulder, massaging the stressed region ever so nicely. Without another word you felt yourself melting under his touch, becoming almost putty as he continued. “You’re quite tense,” Jaebum admitted from behind, feeling for the knot even more as his hand worked in firmer strokes – kneading the area with ease.

“Oh yes, right there.” You encouraged while instinctively leaning your head back further against his abdomen as you indulged from the pleasant release. A small chuckle left Jaebum’s throat, looking at you lovingly as you seemed like you were in complete bliss. “Mmm, does this feel any better?” He further asked, taking this as his chance to slide his hands underneath your blouse and drag them along your bare shoulders.

You could feel goosebumps immediately rising from the simple touch of contact, causing you to go quiet as your breaths became slow and steady, not wanting to sinfully admit the pleasure he was giving you until he brought his lips over to your ear. “I’ll take that as a yes,” he lowly whispered, letting you hear the tempting tone within his voice as his lips lingered by your ear for a minute longer – taking his sweet time to enjoy this.

Soft moans stemmed from your mouth as Jaebum’s hands found themselves rubbing lower, reaching your collarbones and slightly down the curves of your cleavage, grazing over the soft surface before moving his way back up to your shoulders in a slow, sensual motion. “That felt good,” you purred in delight, curving your neck a little as you kept your eyes closed. With each sweet sound, Jaebum found himself yearning for you, almost hurting in a sense as there you were – right in front of him to take while his hands were rubbing over you. He instinctively found himself drawing back down to you, letting his nose graze against the outer surface of your cheek – running it along the edge and briefly taking in the trace of your vanilla scented perfume before inching his mouth near yours. He took a moment to admire the sight of your lips; soft looking and perfectly parted almost as if you were inviting him in, waiting for him to come in closer.

Not being able to wait any longer, Jaebum planted his lips over yours, molding them perfectly together as you soon responded to the kiss. His kisses felt just as good as they did last time, hot and filled with need as your lips stayed in a connected bliss. You gasped as an impatient Jaebum spun your chair around and finally faced you to him, causing you to jolt up and wrap your arms around him as his tongue tangled with yours. Kicking the flimsy chair out of the way, Jaebum pushed you back against the edge of the steel table trapping you against him as he cupped your face.

He let out a low groan as you tugged on his thick black hair, holding onto it as his mouth ravished your neck in a slew of heated sucks and biting before he popped open the first four buttons of your blouse – exposing your lace bra covered cleavage. “Oh god the things I would do to you,” Jaebum heavily breathed as his hand soon felt its way up your skirt, feeling the soaked material of your underwear. “If we weren’t set in a time limit I wouldn’t hesitate to take you up on this table and fuck you right here.” You let out a hushed moan as he slid his finger under the thin material of your panties and ran it down your slit, letting it drag along in teasing motions before rubbing his thumb against your clit.

“Oh-” You breathlessly heaved against him while bucking your hips against his hand – moving in rough motions while he worked wonders. Just know if I do somehow manage to get out of here,” Jaebum stated as he pressed further against you. “The first thing I’m going to do is rip your clothes off, one by one – piece by piece until you’re completely bare.”

“Then what?” You tempted, feeling his erection against your thigh before he delved in and kissed you again, taking your lips in a heated sense as his smirk grew wider. “Then I’m going to make you mine and fuck you until morning. That’s a promise.” He growled before taking your lip in between his teeth and teasingly pulling on it. You let out a moan from the pleasure as he firmly held you up against him, letting you feel his hardened member beneath his pants.

“But we’re alone now,” you weakly huffed against his mouth, kissing him with so much fever and lust as even he was finding it hard to resist. “For now,” Jaebum said with a sinful chuckle. “But we only have a few minutes left – you know we’re going to need more time than that doctor.” He corrected with a smirk as you glanced at the clock behind you, realizing that indeed your hour session would be over soon. With a disappointed hiss, Jaebum broke away from you, letting your lips part with a single smack before he stepped back.

“Time’s up,” he muttered, sitting back into his seat and locking the handcuffs on himself as you buttoned yourself back up and tried to control your breathing as soon the guards came rushing in as expected. “I had a great session doctor,” Jaebum lastly commented, shooting you a hidden wink before standing up and letting the guards take him away. You stood there, staring at the exit he just left from before you ran a hand through your hair, smoothening it out along with your skirt before making your way out of the meeting room.

You found yourself back into the hall, carefully walking to avoid any suspicion as you walked passed a small group of guards. They were talking loudly and huddled near the wall. You kept walking, not bothering to pay much attention until you heard Yugyeom’s name within the discussion, causing you to walk slower. “I heard the newbie got fired,” the blonde guard spilled in amusement.

“Yugyeom was fired?” You repeated, interrupting the conversation as you stood by the men. The four of them turned to you, raising eyebrows as you stared at the blonde man for answers. “Yeah, he was fired this morning.” He replied and you narrowed your brows. “Do you know why?” You further asked, glancing amongst the men. “Rumor has it that he threatened the warden or something – no one knows for sure.”

Your lips parted as the memories from when you found the escapee ran through your mind. You hadn’t seen Yugyeom since and now all of a sudden he was fired, making you only wonder what he could have possibly done to be let go. “Do you know where I can find him?” You asked in a panic. “He’s not here anymore, he’s probably home by now.”

You pursed your lips as you ran a hand through your hair, feeling frustrated. “I’m going to need his address then.”

~*~ You found yourself at the front steps of a small apartment, taking a few knocks on the poorly painted door before standing back and awaiting an answer. While waiting you looked around your surroundings, realizing just how bland the hallway was as it was just white with no decoration whatsoever. You could hear a woman yelling in the room down the hall, catching your attention for a second before the door suddenly opened in front of you. A startled gasp left you as your eyes traced up to find Yugyeom standing there – looking surprised to see you as well as he cocked a brow. “Doctor-” He called, sounding confused as he scratched the back of his head. “…What are you doing here?”

His appearance looked rough to say the least, donning messy hair and smelling of alcohol. He was still wearing his guard uniform from this morning but now with the first five buttons messily undone and revealing a glimpse of his toned chest from underneath. “I came to know if you were okay,” you admitted, causing his eyes to gaze down. “I guess you heard,” Yugyeom simply muttered as he stood in his doorway before realizing you were still out in the hall. “I’m sorry – I didn’t mean to be rude. Please come in doctor,” he suggested with a wave of his hand, motioning for you to enter as he lead the way in.

Taking a few seconds of hesitation you finally decided to walk in, glancing around Yugyeom’s small apartment as you did. It was easily identifiable as an outdated one bedroom – one bath place with the two single chairs in the living room and a small kitchen located in the corner. “Have a seat,” the young man said with a small smile before rushing to the kitchen. You were silent as you sat down, eyeing the large bottle of alcohol in the kitchen from the corner of your eye before Yugyeom was quick to hide it in a cupboard.

“I don’t usually have guests,” Yugyeom commented from the kitchen while filling two glasses of water and bringing them over to you. “Thanks,” you replied as he handed you one of the glasses before he sat down himself. “So who told you?” He asked, getting comfortable in his chair as he sat back and looked at you.

“I overheard a couple of guards talking about it in Westin Hall. They gave me your address,” You truthfully answered while taking the time to cross your legs in comfort. Yugyeom stayed still for a second, relaying the memories of this morning. “Well they weren’t wrong, the old man fired – even had a few guards escort me out of the building.” He answered before letting his gaze travel back to you. “But you know what…I’m glad I was fired. I’m so glad to be out of there now.”

“The guilt was killing me.” Yugyeom added. “Ever since that day I couldn’t sleep knowing that the warden just let someone get away like that. He said he would send some guards after the prisoner – but I knew better than that when he told us to keep quiet. No one has even noticed he’s gone. It’s like he never existed.”

“…And you know, I have a little brother that lives in the city,” he admitted. “I couldn’t sleep thinking that my brother could somehow be attacked by a psycho on the loose. It scares me thinking something could happen to him or anyone just because we were ordered not to say anything.”

“So I told the warden off,” Yugyeom proudly announced. “I went off on a rant and threatened to tell the city police if he didn’t do anything about the escapee – Next thing I know I’m fired and getting thrown out of the facility without my I.D card.”

“You can’t tell the police,” you blurted out, causing Yugyeom to narrow his brows in question. “Why not?” He further asked, demanding an explanation as he was beginning to think you were on the warden’s side until you spoke up. “Because… the police are just as corrupt as the mental prison.” You answered. “They’re working together to lock away innocent people just for the sake of staying open and getting money from the government.”

Yugyeom looked taken back as he shot up from his seat, “That can’t be true-”

“It is, I found out from one the prisoners there,” you answered and Yugyeom shot you a concerned look, almost as if he didn’t believe your judgment. “How can you trust a prisoner? What if they’re lying?” He asked and you bit your lip as you thought back to Jaebum, taking a moment to carefully choose your words before you revealed your relationship. “He’s innocent and I trust him. I know he’s telling the truth,” You admitted.

“Are you sure?” Yugyeom further questioned and you nodded your head before he took a deep sigh. “He told me some of the people there are actually prisoners but most are innocent. They’re all mixed up in that facility.” You added

Taking a leap of faith, Yugyeom decided to trust your judgement, buying in on your story, “Well if you’re sure that your prisoner is right and the police are in on it, then we need to re-think this over carefully.” You nodded your head in response, staying deep in thought as you agreed with him. “I was thinking the same thing.” You added. “But I’m not sure what to do. I want to get the innocent prisoners out of there but I need help.”

“Well now that I’m out you have to stay there and collect evidence of their wrongdoing,” Yugyeom informed. “I would do it but there’s no way I can go back inside that place without my scanner I.D.”

“Okay and what happens when we get the evidence?” You asked curiously until you caught the conniving smirk that spread across Yugyeom's lips as he said...

“We’ll expose them.”