Detective Miller placed a comforting hand on top of Francine’s and said, “I’m going to need the links to your revenge porn pictures so that we can gather evidence and put this creep behind bars. Also, I watch Pacific Blue for the riveting drama and I read Playboy for the articles.”
Showing posts with label Revenge Porn. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Revenge Porn. Show all posts
Monday, September 4, 2023
Thursday, December 29, 2016
Revenge Porn
Liz Ronaldson wondered how badly her body would be broken
after jumping off of the suspension bridge into the icy waters below. Would her
legs snap in two? Would her neck crack in different directions? Would it be
over in an instant? Regardless of the two-hundred foot drop, shattered bones
and punctured organs couldn’t compare to the pain she felt in her heart and
soul. As she gazed hypnotically into the waters below, tears cascaded from her
eyes. She tried wiping them away with the only puffy coat she had, but the
tears kept coming. No matter how many times she snorted and sniffed, the loose
snot wouldn’t stay up her nose. She was ready to jump. One…two…
“Hey, loser, you got five dollars on you? Gimme that shit!”
She saw the incident take place only a few feet from where she planned to jump.
The three bullies pushed around the smaller kid like a torturous game of
volleyball, all while making wisecracks about how he was allegedly on welfare
and food stamps. The smaller kid hauled back and slapped one of the bullies
across the cheek. The shoving match ended with the bullies staring at the kid
in shock. They swore at him with whip-cracking voices while punching him
relentlessly, causing the little guy to huddle on the ground and cover.
Liz’s suicidal sorrow turned into fiery rage. Her tears
became hotter. Her stomach was burning with homicidal tendencies. Her fists
were clenched tightly. Reaching around for the nearest weapon she could find,
she picked up a lead pipe and shouted to the bullies, “Hey! Knock that shit
off! He’s just a kid, you fucking idiots!”
The bullies ended the beat down like they were told, but
only to laugh and point at Liz. “Hey, look! Miss Ronaldson’s got something big
in her hands! Hell, I got something big too after seeing those naked pictures!”
taunted one of the bullies, resulting in even more obnoxious laughter.
Liz chucked the lead pipe at the bullies and caused them to
cover up with their arms as they ran off like little bitches. The former
teacher continued to throw rocks, rusty nails, glass bottles, and anything else
she could get her hands on until the older kids were out of sight. Some of her
projectiles hit their marks, but only did enough damage to elicit an “Ouch!”
and nothing more.
“That’s right, you pussies! You’d better run like the
goddamn wind! If I ever see you fuckers again, I’ll kill you all!” shouted Liz
while flailing her fists in the air. Even more tears poured from her eyes and
stained her tattered jeans and newspaper shoes. The little kid, which she now
recognized as one of her former students, was tearing up as well. Bloody gashes
covered his arms and face, but being homeless didn’t afford Liz access to
proper healthcare supplies.
Liz approached the banged up kid and ripped off pieces of
her fluffy jacket to use as bandages for his wounds. Neither teacher nor
student could stop crying, but Liz wiped her own tears away long enough to form
coherent sentences. “Hi there, Seth! You’re okay now. Everything’s going to be
okay.”
“No, it isn’t,” murmured Seth Luke. He wiped his eyes with
his bloodied arm and recognized the angelic face of his recently fired English
teacher. “Miss Ronaldson? Are you homeless too?”
“Please, call me Liz. I don’t deserve to be called Miss
Ronaldson after what happened with those pictures. So many of my friends and
family saw those.” Liz smiled sadly and shrugged before changing the topic.
“What am I saying? You’re the one who got beat up. They got you pretty good. I
think there’s a hospital around here somewhere. Are you well enough to walk
with me?”
“Thanks for helping me, Miss Ro, I mean, Liz,” sniffled
Seth. He shivered in this chilly afternoon air due to him only wearing a short
sleeved shirt.
Liz gazed upon him sympathetically and took off her own
jacket to wrap him up. “There you go, Seth. You’ll be all warm and toasty in no
time at all.”
“Thanks, Liz, but don’t you need a jacket too? You’ll freeze
out here,” stammered Seth.
“I’m not going to need a jacket for where I’m going,” said
Liz while gesturing towards the edge of the bridge with a nudge of her head.
“No! No, you can’t do that!” argued Seth as he wrapped his
bloodied arms around Liz. “I’m not letting you jump! I don’t care if I have to
hold onto you for the rest of my life!” Even more hot tears drained the
homeless teenager’s eyeballs to the point of redness. “You were my favorite
teacher before they fired you! You taught me about being creative and making
the most of life! And now you’re just going to jump off the bridge over some
naked pictures online?!”
Liz wrapped her arms around Seth and said solemnly, “There’s
more to it than that, Seth. It’s not just the naked pictures that became my
scandalous secret. It’s about my career. It’s about my social and family lives.
I made a bad decision when I let my bastard of a boyfriend take those pictures
of me. I’ve lost everything and I can’t get it back. Once something is on the
internet, it’s there forever. All I have left are the clothes on my body and a
beating heart. I don’t want the latter of those two things if it just keeps
hurting like this.”
Seth gave Liz his best puppy dog expression when he sobbed,
“But I can help you get those things back! It’s not over until I say it’s over!
You’re going to be okay again! I promise you!”
“Seth, that is so sweet,” sniffed Liz. “But you’re in the
same boat as I am. We’re both alone out here with nowhere to sleep and nothing
to eat. What can we do for each other now? Where do we go from here?”
“There’s always another way, Liz,” said Seth. “We have each
other. We can be a team and take on the streets together. Just you and me! No
jack-off bullies, no bastard boyfriends, no judgment at all. You taught me all
about this, Liz! You taught me how important it is to care about each other and
be there when we’re down. If you jump off that bridge, you’re going to be
nothing more than a hypocrite! Maybe I’ll join you afterwards, who knows!”
Liz shoved Seth away from the embrace and transformed back
into rage mode. “Oh yeah?! A hypocrite?! And what do you suppose I do about
this?! I haven’t eaten in days and I’ve got frostbite on my fucking fingers!
Nobody wants to give me the time of day let alone give me my life back, all
because of some stupid fucking naked pictures! What am I supposed to do, just
pick up a beer bottle off the ground and pretend there’s actually liquor in
it?! Tell me how you’d solve my problems if suicide doesn’t fix everything,
asshole! What would the great and wonderful Seth Luke do if he was half the
master of his destiny that I’m supposed to be?!”
While giving his former teacher the gorgon death stare, Seth
pulled a wallet out of his pocket with his school’s logo on it. It looked
stuffed with dollar bills. “You see this? I plucked it out of one of the
bullies’ pockets while those three bastards were beating on me! I was going to
eat at McDonald’s or Denny’s with this kind of money! I was going to take you
out for something to eat! But I guess you’d prefer suicide over a good meal!
See you around, toots! Thanks for the life lessons! I really appreciate them!”
Seth turned heel and began stomping away. Watching him leave
twisted a knot in Liz’s stomach. No matter how much she tried to deny it, Seth
was right all along. Dying would solve nothing. Liz had just unloaded on the
one person in this world who still cared about her. He probably didn’t even
have an internet connection to see those pictures. He took to her lessons of
not judging each other like a bee to honey. Liz’s heart shattered into a
million pieces after realizing what she had done.
“Seth, wait!” said Liz as she ran after him. He turned to
face her with his arms folded and an angry stare formed on his bloody visage.
“You’re right. You’ve been right all along. Look at you. You’re in the same
boat as me and you’d never consider suicide. You’re an A+ student in the truest
sense. Don’t let anybody tell you differently. I’m sorry I yelled at you. Let’s
take on the world together. I’d love to eat a decent meal with you. How about a
hug?”
Liz and Seth bawled some more while coming in for a tight
embrace. Two of the loneliest people in the world versus an uncaring,
inherently evil society. The odds were stacked against them, but they liked
those odds anyways. Death was not the answer. Fighting like a passionate
warrior was closer to being the topic of an A+ paper, written by A+ students
and teachers alike.
Wednesday, January 6, 2016
Happy Meal
“Going to McDonald’s to eat a salad is like going to a prostitute for a hug.” CJ Blake giggled when she saw that Face Book meme on her smart phone. Judging from her hunched posture and droopy expression, however, that would be the only moment of happiness she had in a long period of time. She dredged into McDonald’s looking like someone had killed her puppy-duppy. Her blond hair was disheveled, her frail hands were stuffed in her black hoodie pockets, and her blue jeans looked like they hadn’t been washed in days.
When Miss Blake surveyed the restaurant with her bloodshot eyes, she found that except for the clerks and Ronald McDonald mascot, she was all alone for the evening. Given her circumstances, being alone was both a positive and a negative. She would have her meal all to herself, but no cute guy to share it with.
The clerk at the counter, Leon Tobin, didn’t look any better when it came to being stressed out by depression. The only reason his lanky figure was upright was because such posture was necessary for looking superior in an argument. His furrowed brows and quick movements on the register gave away more of his angry attitude.
“Welcome to McDonald’s, ma’am. What can I get started for you?” asked Leon in a professional, yet bothered tone. His fingers on the cash register were going to blitz and scramble once this order was taken.
Without looking at the menu above, CJ Blake knew exactly what she wanted: “Can I get a Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese, a Twenty-Piece McNugget with no sauce, a large vanilla shake, and a large coke?”
The only reason Leon hesitated when punching the numbers in the register was out of surprise that a cute girl would order such a big meal and ruin her lovely figure. The moment of hesitation was brief and the total was otherwise quickly added up. “That’ll be nineteen dollars even.”
CJ languidly fiddled around in her hoodie pockets and paid Leon with a twenty dollar bill, thus receiving one dollar in change. Without even waiting for the clerk to give her the order number, CJ dragged herself over to a nearby table and hung her head low. A small tear formed in her eye and dropped onto the table to create a tiny splash.
After giving the cooks CJ’s order, Leon stood behind the counter with his arms folded and watched his only customer with concern. He knew the personal affairs of his clientele were none of his damn business, so going over to ask what was wrong was out of the question. Besides, he had enough problems of his own that evening to be getting personally involved. He wanted to look away, but he couldn’t. Watching CJ wallow in her depressive state made his heart ache on the inside. Either that or Leon’s dinner wasn’t sitting well with him.
Miss Blake continued to sit at her table with her head slouched over and her energy low. She probably wouldn’t have noticed if her food was ready. Garrett Fox dressed as Ronald McDonald, on the other hand, caused her to jump back and gasp. Garrett said, “Hey there, little girl!” in a deep, goofy voice. “You don’t have to be sour! Your meal is coming up soon and you’re going to have a wonderful time! If you want to order anything else…”
“Get the fuck away from me before I punch that silly red nose of yours through your goddamn skull,” said CJ in her usual languid voice.
“You heard her, Garrett. She obviously doesn’t want to be bothered right now. Take five,” said Leon, still with his arms folded behind the counter.
Garrett Fox’s eyes danced back and forth between CJ and Leon, not knowing where to go at first. He then took off his Ronald mask to reveal shaggy brown hair and a lion’s mane underneath before stomping over to Leon to angrily whisper, “What the hell are you doing?! We’re supposed to be selling her as much food as possible and you’re getting in my way again!”
“Her order was nineteen dollars even. She doesn’t need any more of this processed crap.”
With his arms flailing like a cartoon character, Garrett said, “Are you kidding me right now? Where’s your spirit? The only way we’re going to stay in business is by being enthusiastic about it. Smile, damn it! Have some fun!”
“Fun?!” said Leon with a raised voice. “You think this is fun for me?! You think taking orders from snotty people gives me pleasure?! Shit, man, I could go on forever about the screaming old people and the bratty teenagers who wouldn’t leave me alone for just one minute! That’s it! I can’t do this anymore!”
Garrett placed both of his gloved hands on either side of Leon’s face and said, “Think of your baby son, Leon! What’s he going to do if he finds out that daddy’s a quitter?!”
Leon swatted Garrett’s hands away, pointed a finger at him, and yelled, “Don’t you ever mention my family again, you son of a bitch! You know nothing about them!”
The two McDonald’s employees shoved and wrestled with each other over the counter with the other workers seemingly ignorant to what was going on out there. The last person expected to care, CJ Blake, suddenly stood up from the table and shouted, “Stop it! Stop this shit right now!”
Leon Tobin and Garrett Fox stopped their countertop roughhousing and gave CJ their wide-eyed attention. She screamed, “I came here to McDonald’s to get away from the fighting, not to watch more of it! You guys think you had it rough? Try getting in a nasty breakup with your lover! I’m talking about a really nasty breakup!”
To prove her point, CJ pulled her right hand out of her pocket and revealed red knuckles and pink scrapes. “Holy shit!” said Garrett.
“Yeah, you’re damn right that hurts! What hurts even more is the fact that every one of my family and friends keeps giving me the ‘I told you so!’ speech! I told you so, I told you so! So excuse me if I make your cooks work a little harder to get me a big ass meal! Shit, man, I already have a big ass.” CJ sat back down and buried her face in her folded arms. Tears soaked her hoodie sleeves while she breathed quickly in and out.
“Order up!” said one of the cooks.
Leon snapped out of his trance long enough to swipe the tray of food onto the floor and yell, “No! That’s not how this is going down!” He climbed over the counter and left Garrett in a dumbfounded state of mind as he lay on the counter staring at CJ.
As soon as the disgruntled clerk took a seat across from her, the depressed ex-girlfriend said, “Go away. I don’t want to talk to you right now. And why did you throw around my food like that? You’re an asshole.”
“You’re absolutely right,” said Leon before he held CJ’s bruised hand in both of his own. “I am an asshole. I spent the last few days snapping at people when they just wanted their meals. We both had a bad couple of days. But you know what? Eating all that food isn’t going to make you feel better. It’s going to make you feel like shit. You’re going to be sluggish, you’re going to be slow, and you’re going to be struggling for air all the time. It’s almost like you wanted to commit suicide or something.”
CJ lifted her head to reveal her wet face and said, “I’m diabetic.” Garrett and Leon’s eyes shot up in horror and their lips quivered in fear. “That’s right. I came here to die tonight. It doesn’t matter how many times I punched my boyfriend, those nude photos of me are going to be on the internet forever. And no, I don’t care about telling a complete stranger all of this, because I’m not going to be around long enough to feel awkward about it.”
The depressed lady buried her tearful face in her arms yet again and sobbed away with Leon watching her in shock. He never let go of her hand. He snapped at enough people already and he wasn’t about to take his anger out on another poor soul. CJ had enough people angry with her already. What she needed more than anything was a kindred soul.
“You don’t need to die tonight. You need to start over,” said Leon. “If all your friend and family keep saying, ‘I told you so’, then you need new friends and new family members. Maybe I can be the one who helps you with that.”
“Yeah right!” said CJ. “How can you help me? You just said yourself that you spent the last few days yelling at customers!”
“I did. And it was stupid. I need to start over as well. Do you know how I plan to start over? Come with me and I’ll show you.” Leon helped the shaky CJ stand up and the two of them put their arms around each other’s shoulders as they walked out of McDonald’s in protest. To prove his run was over, Leon took off his McDonald’s hat and ripped off the shirt to his uniform.
CJ smiled at Leon and whistled flirtingly. Another short moment of happiness that would hopefully evolve into a longer one with Leon by her side. Their temporary chuckles ended when the two of them saw Garrett shamelessly eating CJ’s order off of the floor. “What?” the mascot said. “It’s a five minute rule.”
“That’s five seconds, you dummy!” said CJ before she and Leon walked away from McDonald’s forever.
When Miss Blake surveyed the restaurant with her bloodshot eyes, she found that except for the clerks and Ronald McDonald mascot, she was all alone for the evening. Given her circumstances, being alone was both a positive and a negative. She would have her meal all to herself, but no cute guy to share it with.
The clerk at the counter, Leon Tobin, didn’t look any better when it came to being stressed out by depression. The only reason his lanky figure was upright was because such posture was necessary for looking superior in an argument. His furrowed brows and quick movements on the register gave away more of his angry attitude.
“Welcome to McDonald’s, ma’am. What can I get started for you?” asked Leon in a professional, yet bothered tone. His fingers on the cash register were going to blitz and scramble once this order was taken.
Without looking at the menu above, CJ Blake knew exactly what she wanted: “Can I get a Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese, a Twenty-Piece McNugget with no sauce, a large vanilla shake, and a large coke?”
The only reason Leon hesitated when punching the numbers in the register was out of surprise that a cute girl would order such a big meal and ruin her lovely figure. The moment of hesitation was brief and the total was otherwise quickly added up. “That’ll be nineteen dollars even.”
CJ languidly fiddled around in her hoodie pockets and paid Leon with a twenty dollar bill, thus receiving one dollar in change. Without even waiting for the clerk to give her the order number, CJ dragged herself over to a nearby table and hung her head low. A small tear formed in her eye and dropped onto the table to create a tiny splash.
After giving the cooks CJ’s order, Leon stood behind the counter with his arms folded and watched his only customer with concern. He knew the personal affairs of his clientele were none of his damn business, so going over to ask what was wrong was out of the question. Besides, he had enough problems of his own that evening to be getting personally involved. He wanted to look away, but he couldn’t. Watching CJ wallow in her depressive state made his heart ache on the inside. Either that or Leon’s dinner wasn’t sitting well with him.
Miss Blake continued to sit at her table with her head slouched over and her energy low. She probably wouldn’t have noticed if her food was ready. Garrett Fox dressed as Ronald McDonald, on the other hand, caused her to jump back and gasp. Garrett said, “Hey there, little girl!” in a deep, goofy voice. “You don’t have to be sour! Your meal is coming up soon and you’re going to have a wonderful time! If you want to order anything else…”
“Get the fuck away from me before I punch that silly red nose of yours through your goddamn skull,” said CJ in her usual languid voice.
“You heard her, Garrett. She obviously doesn’t want to be bothered right now. Take five,” said Leon, still with his arms folded behind the counter.
Garrett Fox’s eyes danced back and forth between CJ and Leon, not knowing where to go at first. He then took off his Ronald mask to reveal shaggy brown hair and a lion’s mane underneath before stomping over to Leon to angrily whisper, “What the hell are you doing?! We’re supposed to be selling her as much food as possible and you’re getting in my way again!”
“Her order was nineteen dollars even. She doesn’t need any more of this processed crap.”
With his arms flailing like a cartoon character, Garrett said, “Are you kidding me right now? Where’s your spirit? The only way we’re going to stay in business is by being enthusiastic about it. Smile, damn it! Have some fun!”
“Fun?!” said Leon with a raised voice. “You think this is fun for me?! You think taking orders from snotty people gives me pleasure?! Shit, man, I could go on forever about the screaming old people and the bratty teenagers who wouldn’t leave me alone for just one minute! That’s it! I can’t do this anymore!”
Garrett placed both of his gloved hands on either side of Leon’s face and said, “Think of your baby son, Leon! What’s he going to do if he finds out that daddy’s a quitter?!”
Leon swatted Garrett’s hands away, pointed a finger at him, and yelled, “Don’t you ever mention my family again, you son of a bitch! You know nothing about them!”
The two McDonald’s employees shoved and wrestled with each other over the counter with the other workers seemingly ignorant to what was going on out there. The last person expected to care, CJ Blake, suddenly stood up from the table and shouted, “Stop it! Stop this shit right now!”
Leon Tobin and Garrett Fox stopped their countertop roughhousing and gave CJ their wide-eyed attention. She screamed, “I came here to McDonald’s to get away from the fighting, not to watch more of it! You guys think you had it rough? Try getting in a nasty breakup with your lover! I’m talking about a really nasty breakup!”
To prove her point, CJ pulled her right hand out of her pocket and revealed red knuckles and pink scrapes. “Holy shit!” said Garrett.
“Yeah, you’re damn right that hurts! What hurts even more is the fact that every one of my family and friends keeps giving me the ‘I told you so!’ speech! I told you so, I told you so! So excuse me if I make your cooks work a little harder to get me a big ass meal! Shit, man, I already have a big ass.” CJ sat back down and buried her face in her folded arms. Tears soaked her hoodie sleeves while she breathed quickly in and out.
“Order up!” said one of the cooks.
Leon snapped out of his trance long enough to swipe the tray of food onto the floor and yell, “No! That’s not how this is going down!” He climbed over the counter and left Garrett in a dumbfounded state of mind as he lay on the counter staring at CJ.
As soon as the disgruntled clerk took a seat across from her, the depressed ex-girlfriend said, “Go away. I don’t want to talk to you right now. And why did you throw around my food like that? You’re an asshole.”
“You’re absolutely right,” said Leon before he held CJ’s bruised hand in both of his own. “I am an asshole. I spent the last few days snapping at people when they just wanted their meals. We both had a bad couple of days. But you know what? Eating all that food isn’t going to make you feel better. It’s going to make you feel like shit. You’re going to be sluggish, you’re going to be slow, and you’re going to be struggling for air all the time. It’s almost like you wanted to commit suicide or something.”
CJ lifted her head to reveal her wet face and said, “I’m diabetic.” Garrett and Leon’s eyes shot up in horror and their lips quivered in fear. “That’s right. I came here to die tonight. It doesn’t matter how many times I punched my boyfriend, those nude photos of me are going to be on the internet forever. And no, I don’t care about telling a complete stranger all of this, because I’m not going to be around long enough to feel awkward about it.”
The depressed lady buried her tearful face in her arms yet again and sobbed away with Leon watching her in shock. He never let go of her hand. He snapped at enough people already and he wasn’t about to take his anger out on another poor soul. CJ had enough people angry with her already. What she needed more than anything was a kindred soul.
“You don’t need to die tonight. You need to start over,” said Leon. “If all your friend and family keep saying, ‘I told you so’, then you need new friends and new family members. Maybe I can be the one who helps you with that.”
“Yeah right!” said CJ. “How can you help me? You just said yourself that you spent the last few days yelling at customers!”
“I did. And it was stupid. I need to start over as well. Do you know how I plan to start over? Come with me and I’ll show you.” Leon helped the shaky CJ stand up and the two of them put their arms around each other’s shoulders as they walked out of McDonald’s in protest. To prove his run was over, Leon took off his McDonald’s hat and ripped off the shirt to his uniform.
CJ smiled at Leon and whistled flirtingly. Another short moment of happiness that would hopefully evolve into a longer one with Leon by her side. Their temporary chuckles ended when the two of them saw Garrett shamelessly eating CJ’s order off of the floor. “What?” the mascot said. “It’s a five minute rule.”
“That’s five seconds, you dummy!” said CJ before she and Leon walked away from McDonald’s forever.
Sunday, November 15, 2015
Bury the Past
***BURY THE PAST***
In my college days, I used to talk candidly about my past like it was no big deal. I would write little essays of my most negative and emotionally draining experiences and post them online as if I was hotter shit than Tobias Wolff or Alison Bechdel, both authors masters of the memoir style. I even had aspirations of writing my own autobiography and talking about high school in Chehalis, living with my former step-dad Art, and being depressed at Western Washington University. Every negative experience I had in my life would bring me gold and silver, I thought to myself.
But then people would see these nonfiction postings and would want to know more. So they prodded me with questions like “What did he say?” and “What happened?” and anything else that would be considered nosy and detective-like. Talking about these experiences doesn’t bring me peace of any kind. It brings me sadness and heartache, so I try to avoid these conversations as much as possible. But then the nosy people would ask me why I posted my memoirs online whilst refusing to talk about it afterwards. I could never argue with that logic. I knew in my heart it was wrong, but I couldn’t disprove it. So please, if I don’t want to talk about the past, don’t make me. I keep those memories buried beneath the dirt forever, never to surface again.
I say these things not just as a warning to anybody digging into my past, but to anybody who wants to write memoirs themselves. If you publish something, people will be nosy about it and ask you about traumatic memories until the end of time. A prime example of a memoir gone bad is “My Fight/Your Fight” by UFC fighter Ronda Rousey. I haven’t read it yet, but I do know about it through Rousey’s Wikipedia profile. In the memoir, she talks about a time when she beat the shit out of her ex-boyfriend because he wanted to post revenge porn (nude photographs) of her online. Ever since then, domestic violence groups dropped the hammer down on Rousey while completely ignoring the cyber abuse her ex-boyfriend tried to commit, which is just as bad in my opinion as any physical beating.
Rousey has her own reasons why she wrote the memoir and none of her public backlash is her fault. But after hearing about that part in her book, it makes me want to read it more. Make no mistake about it, though: if there comes a time when the two of us talk online, neither of our pasts will be on the menu. Same thing goes for authors like Jaycee Dugard, Randy Blythe, and Amanda Knox: if I want to know their life stories, I’ll read their books and make no further comments other than to leave an online review.
Privacy is always a fuzzy gray area with the internet being as abundant as it is today. People love to share their lives online, but when the sharing becomes too much, their followers still want more. I personally enjoy my offline privacy. I keep my past buried beneath the earth, I refuse to write memoirs, and the only pieces of my life that I do share are clean photographs and occasional updates of events that might affect my artistic performance. Being an introvert and being a private person go hand in hand. When privacy is violated, the introvert becomes bitter at whoever violated it and rightfully so. So please, don’t force anybody to talk about something they don’t want to. Talking doesn’t bring peace for everyone, mostly just traumatic flashbacks and chilled blood.
***CREATIVE WORK***
A new week at the WSS is on the horizon, so expect another Poison Tongue Tale to come from that prompt as well as my independently written short story “Zombie”. The biggest update I have so far is for the Dark Fantasy Warrior drawings I’ve been doing. Up next is Rosie Moonbender, the antelope wizard from Unleash the Animal. She is the epitome of the “colorful, over-the-top violence” Edward Davies at the WSS likes to talk about when commenting on my short stories. Unleash the Animal was a bizarre story to say the least, which is what will make this picture of Rosie Moonbender all the more special.
***WRESTLING JOKE OF THE DAY***
Q: What does Stone Cold Steve Austin say every time he changes a baby’s diaper?
A: Austin 3:16 says I just wiped your ass!
In my college days, I used to talk candidly about my past like it was no big deal. I would write little essays of my most negative and emotionally draining experiences and post them online as if I was hotter shit than Tobias Wolff or Alison Bechdel, both authors masters of the memoir style. I even had aspirations of writing my own autobiography and talking about high school in Chehalis, living with my former step-dad Art, and being depressed at Western Washington University. Every negative experience I had in my life would bring me gold and silver, I thought to myself.
But then people would see these nonfiction postings and would want to know more. So they prodded me with questions like “What did he say?” and “What happened?” and anything else that would be considered nosy and detective-like. Talking about these experiences doesn’t bring me peace of any kind. It brings me sadness and heartache, so I try to avoid these conversations as much as possible. But then the nosy people would ask me why I posted my memoirs online whilst refusing to talk about it afterwards. I could never argue with that logic. I knew in my heart it was wrong, but I couldn’t disprove it. So please, if I don’t want to talk about the past, don’t make me. I keep those memories buried beneath the dirt forever, never to surface again.
I say these things not just as a warning to anybody digging into my past, but to anybody who wants to write memoirs themselves. If you publish something, people will be nosy about it and ask you about traumatic memories until the end of time. A prime example of a memoir gone bad is “My Fight/Your Fight” by UFC fighter Ronda Rousey. I haven’t read it yet, but I do know about it through Rousey’s Wikipedia profile. In the memoir, she talks about a time when she beat the shit out of her ex-boyfriend because he wanted to post revenge porn (nude photographs) of her online. Ever since then, domestic violence groups dropped the hammer down on Rousey while completely ignoring the cyber abuse her ex-boyfriend tried to commit, which is just as bad in my opinion as any physical beating.
Rousey has her own reasons why she wrote the memoir and none of her public backlash is her fault. But after hearing about that part in her book, it makes me want to read it more. Make no mistake about it, though: if there comes a time when the two of us talk online, neither of our pasts will be on the menu. Same thing goes for authors like Jaycee Dugard, Randy Blythe, and Amanda Knox: if I want to know their life stories, I’ll read their books and make no further comments other than to leave an online review.
Privacy is always a fuzzy gray area with the internet being as abundant as it is today. People love to share their lives online, but when the sharing becomes too much, their followers still want more. I personally enjoy my offline privacy. I keep my past buried beneath the earth, I refuse to write memoirs, and the only pieces of my life that I do share are clean photographs and occasional updates of events that might affect my artistic performance. Being an introvert and being a private person go hand in hand. When privacy is violated, the introvert becomes bitter at whoever violated it and rightfully so. So please, don’t force anybody to talk about something they don’t want to. Talking doesn’t bring peace for everyone, mostly just traumatic flashbacks and chilled blood.
***CREATIVE WORK***
A new week at the WSS is on the horizon, so expect another Poison Tongue Tale to come from that prompt as well as my independently written short story “Zombie”. The biggest update I have so far is for the Dark Fantasy Warrior drawings I’ve been doing. Up next is Rosie Moonbender, the antelope wizard from Unleash the Animal. She is the epitome of the “colorful, over-the-top violence” Edward Davies at the WSS likes to talk about when commenting on my short stories. Unleash the Animal was a bizarre story to say the least, which is what will make this picture of Rosie Moonbender all the more special.
***WRESTLING JOKE OF THE DAY***
Q: What does Stone Cold Steve Austin say every time he changes a baby’s diaper?
A: Austin 3:16 says I just wiped your ass!
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