The lovely c0atimundi tagged me (thanks!) so I took the opportunity to handwrite a little ‘personal’ message.. ^^ Consider it a rare token of appreciation, haha.

Well, I’m missing something here… What exactly is going on with JeffCo and the basement tapes?

I’m getting back to you a little late in comparison to when you asked me this question (sorry! been holed up at work today), so I’m guessing that you already found your answer in the meantime. In case you didn’t, though, and in case others reading this are going “what the..?!” at it all.. Here’s what I know about what’s up.

About two days ago, we got the first inkling that something was up in The Land Of Basement Tapes when we caught sight of an official-looking end to a document that stated “Sheriff Shrader stands by his predecessor’s decision not to release the basement tapes and his rationale for not releasing them. [..] destroyed the remaining evidence of the Columbine Shootings.”. Initially, I think that many of us in the community just raised their eyebrow at it. I personally didn’t think it likely that every bit of the evidence was destroyed, as I work in a town council archive myself and we have some pretty hefty laws to uphold in our work. I would sooner say that the physical evidence/documentation was destroyed and that only digital copies of the evidence remain, as per the common policy in many archives today. 

Since then, we received the full documentation to which the previous statement belonged. This can be found here and here. The documentation actually isn’t that far from previous documentation we’ve received about the reasonings why they are not releasing the tapes and the remaining evidence. (Of which there is a fuckton – I’ve detailed a small part of what we’re missing here and I’m pretty sure I’ll run into much more once I reorganise that damn 11k.) They tend to waffle on in this current document about the copycat stuff and about the Super Columbine Massacre RPG and all the other shit that’s supposedly a good excuse as to why the general public isn’t allowed to see Eric and Dylan in their darkest hours. It certainly didn’t provide a conclusive statement about the fate of the basement tapes.

Then, last night, I was made aware of the contact that one of us (yay you, taking one for the team!) had had with JeffCo about the whole thing. You can read idontfangirlmuch’s account over here. Now, there’s still a chance that JeffCo is lying through its teeth. There’s a small chance that, 75 years from now, we’ll suddenly get a freakin’ surprise release. But the endless repetition of “the basement tapes have been destroyed” is extremely worrying. And: it may be true. That’s pretty much what led me to create that one post late last night on how JeffCo is playing straight into the hands of Eric and Dylan in doing so. It angers me that JeffCo repetitively states that they do not want copycats, that they do not want to ‘feed the monster’ in a sense.. and yet they give off the message that they are so scared of these tapes that destroying them would be the better option. It lends the words of the boys a pedestal without parallel: when law enforcement is still that concerned about what you left behind 16 years after your death, you pretty much earned the ‘godlike’ stamp of approval from all those kids already looking up to you and wanting to be you. JeffCo are handling their legacy in completely the opposite way I would personally choose to handle it. So, yeah, that’s pretty much the story as I know it..

Well, now.. if JeffCo isn’t lying to us or muddling the waters of truth, then it looks like we just lost the basement tapes and pretty much every other unreleased piece of evidence despite my calling it quite unlikely.

And I just have to get this out. JeffCo, honey, congratulations. Congratulations on yet another mistake. Congratulations on keeping the myth of Eric and Dylan alive indefinitely. Congratulations on showcasing your fear of everything you could never comprehend. Congratulations with your utter incompetence.

You gave these two boys exactly what they wanted. You gave them that untouchable pedestal of being so powerful that their words are not released to the public in full out of fear of what said public will do when they hear that call to arms. You feed into their revolution with every step you take.

Eric and Dylan would have been very grateful to you for giving them this mythic status. That fact alone should fill you with regret over everything you have done in your part of their story. And I hope it’ll haunt you forever once that realisation hits you.

Real talk. If we did lose the basement tapes forever to another round of gross incompetence from JeffCo, I promise I will write the most gloriously hilarious rendition of them in honour of what we lost out on. (I may just do that anyway, hah.)

But I don’t quite buy that the tapes were destroyed altogether. A lot of the material from a case like Columbine would be subject to archiving laws, as globally detailed by yours truly here and here. While it is possible that some of the less important evidence was destroyed following the end of a specific ‘archive holding law’ over those, it is also far more likely that another part of the evidence is subject to be kept on-file for years to come regardless of whether the case is closed or not. The basement tapes are something I firmly believe to be in the ‘keep’-section of that Columbine-related archive.

So, let’s all take a collective deep breath. It’s possible we lost the tapes forever. It’s also entirely possible that JeffCo or the state of Colorado or the town council of Littleton or some other official hoopla still has everything that matters safely tucked away in their (digitalised) records.

how do u think e&d would react if they found out their girlfriends were addicted to drugs and possibly even found them OD?

Hopefully they would react in the same way any other person with a lick of common sense would. =) The boys weren’t so outlandishly different from us in their psyches that they would react in an extremely abnormal fashion to these types of what-if scenarios.

Having a relationship with someone who’s addicted to drugs is (in my own limited experience) very, very tough. It can and does cause a lot of problems within the areas of trust and reliability in particular when it comes to building a relationship and life together. The addicted person tends to view their own behaviour as normal, or at least as something that is “not that big a deal”, while the non-addicted person will begin to see the patterns and behavioural issues the further along they get in that relationship. It’s often something that ‘breaks’ the bond between people entirely, because the strain the addiction puts on the relationship is really severe and shouldn’t be taken lightly. I think it’s already very difficult to handle when you’re both adults, but the ‘ordinary’ struggle of being a teenager added into the mix would possibly be even more problematic. Both of the boys weren’t free of issues – far from it – and I think that having a relationship where a strong foundation of togetherness was being endangered by both their own shortcomings and their girl’s addiction problems would be very detrimental to them.

Both boys are said to have smoked weed, but that seems to have been the extent of their willingness to get involved with drugs of any kind. Eric is cited in his diversion papers as having stated that drugs are “trouble” and “a waste of time, and of life”. Now, I’m relatively certain that he played up the ‘good son’-angle an awful lot in some of the answers he gave. It can be assumed that his own private thoughts about it may have been similar to what he stated, but there’s also a small likelihood that he believed very differently. (It’s what therapists over here call a “socially desirable” way of replying, in that Eric says what he feels the other person wants to hear rather than that he expresses his own private feelings and thoughts on the subject. Dylan did a fair bit of this, too.) Dylan saw the effects addiction could have on relationships firsthand due to the struggles of his brother Byron with this particular issue. After all those family counseling sessions the Klebolds went to, I suspect that Dylan would’ve had his belly full of dealing with (the aftermath of) addiction in personal relationships. Of course, if he had the girlfriend already and only became aware of her addiction troubles later on.. I believe that Dylan would have attempted to shoulder the full responsibility of help and recovery on her behalf. I don’t think he gave up very easy on someone he truly loved. Eric, too, had a certain loyalty to people he cared about in his system, although I also believe that Eric would have massive issues with being lied to and with the behavioural patterns that many addicts can and do bring with them in relationships. He might have been more inclined to walk away than Dylan in this respect. (I strongly believe that Eric was the more self-preserving of the duo in personal relationships, whereas Dylan was the self-sacrificing one.)

Whenever I come across some rare historic insightful document that has been basically lost forever and is just floating about on some old geocities website, I get this panic-y excited feeling and feel a need to try to preserve it ‘for posterity’ because I consider it so important and don’t want to lose it. The document, interview, video, whatever itself, I get torn between savoring or giddily indulging and absorbing all at once. I get the same feeling reading your posts/analysis.

Haha, you’ve got that too? I know that panic-y excited feeling so well. It’s ‘the research rush’ for me when I am so deeply immersed in whatever holds my interest that I want to know everything and anything about it. I’ll save links, texts, post them up here, double-save some of it to an external harddrive, make physical copies of it if it’s a book, etc.. I usually do the indulging bit first where I absorb everything in this glossover style and then I draw it out and savour it by examining every detail separately. Good stuff! =D

For you to get that same feeling from reading my things.. that’s big stuff to me. It’s stumped me a little – what do you say when the compliment you’ve just received is so big? I think I’ll settle for a huge “thank you”!

you wanted an anons thought on you here I go. I think u are very smart and u give so much good information. I love u.

Thank you so much! What a lovely thing to hear. =) You’re very appreciated!

Go on anon and tell me your honest opinion of me

Suicidality, Violence, and Mania caused by SSRIs: a review and analysis

I am currently on the hunt for information that will benefit one more small opinion piece of mine on the problematic aspects of mental healthcare in relation to Columbine. During my search, I happened to stumble upon this tiny gemstone of research that reinforces the idea that the prescription of SSRIs to Eric may very well have helped make things worse. It’s a pretty interesting read!

Based on the literature and my clinical experience, the syndrome of SSRI-induced obsessive suicidality and violence includes many and sometimes all of the following:

1. A relatively sudden onset and rapid escalation of the compulsive aggression against self and/or others.

2. A recent (typically within two months) initial exposure to the medication, or a recent change in the dose of the medication, or a recent addition or removal of another psychoactive substance to the regimen.

3. The presence of other adverse drug reactions, often involving akathisia or stimulation along a continuum from irritability and agitation to agitated depression and mania.

4. Resolution of the syndrome after termination of the causative medication, often with a marked overall improvement in the individual’s mental status.

5. An extremely violent and/or bizarre quality to the thoughts and actions.

6. An obsessive, compelling, unrelenting quality to the thoughts and actions.

7. An out-of-character quality for the individual as determined by the individual’s history.

8. An alien or ego-dystonic quality as determined by the individual’s subjective report.

Suicidality, Violence, and Mania caused by SSRIs: a review and analysis

I would just like to take the time to update all of you for a second, as it’s been a while since this particular ‘project’ of mine has been mentioned and I don’t want any of you to think I’m not hard at work to make it happen. I realise through the asks and comments I have received over the course of time that quite a few of you have been looking forward to the Dylan-piece I spoke about writing after I had finally finished Building ‘Reb’ in April last year. Its tentative release date of September 2014 was pushed back indefinitely when I realised that I wasn’t getting any of that writing done between my then fulltime job and the relentless focus on Eric that arose from having dived so deep into his mind and writings.

Now, however, I have started work on Dreaming The Halcyon in earnest. I will push for a release within April this year (I’m not going to make y’all wait until Dylan’s birthday, are you kidding) and will hopefully have it live up to the expectations I know exist within some of you about it. In the meantime, I would like to ask you.. if there is anything you really want me to mention/talk about that you feel is important about Dylan’s writing, could you please send me a message/ask (through this blog or my regular one – whichever you prefer!) or reblog this post of mine with your comments? Thank you!

what “Halcyon” means?

alwayshereblog:

Well Halcyon according to the dictionary means not only a bird but also it means: Calm and peaceful; tranquil.

Now which definition Dylan use the “halcyon” word, I’m not sure, but I know someone here already made a post about it. Maybe Eva (which knows everything) can help 🙂

*waves* Think this might be helpful?

http://thedragonrampant.tumblr.com/post/81794804213/what-is-a-halcyon-sorry-for-my-ignorance-haha

Do you ever get reminded of Eric/Dylan/Columbine on a daily basis? Ever since I started my interest 3 years ago reminders pop up all the time. It’s like a very catchy 80’s song that you can’t get out of your head no matter how hard you try.

Oh yeah, most definitely. I’ve heard the same thing from other people – “something you just can’t shake” is probably the most-heard thing when you talk with anyone about the case and the boys. Even for those no longer spending much time in that heavy research-zone, references and reminders tend to pop up out of the blue. I guess that makes sense when you’ve been so attuned to everything that remotely has to do with the case. Eric himself wrote that he incorporated everything he heard, saw, etc into NBK somehow – it’s almost like reality molds itself to fit around that one huge thing.

For me, the reminders are usually pretty subtle. They had this 90s-week on the radio before Christmas, of course with songs the boys must’ve heard really regularly, and I had to laugh to myself when they played Rammstein’s “Engel” and the guy on the radio was like “you can’t get it out of your head, can you?” afterward. Or there are times when I catch a movie I know one of them would’ve loved, or days where there’s some other subtle niggling reminder about the whole deal that just makes me shake my head and go “oh sure bombard me with your crap why don’t you”. 😉 Like I said.. hard to shake! I’m sure many others will relate, too. ^^

What kind of boyfriends do you think eric and dylan would’ve been? do you think eric would’ve been the jealous overprotective type? And dylan the submissive type?

I was so sure that I’d talked about this sort of thing before but all I end up seeing in my archive are answers to questions about the girls they liked, and while I think I touch upon how they’d be as boyfriends in those I don’t think I’ve ever been fully thorough in this respect. I did answer one ask about them being potentially abusive in a relationship and one on who would’ve been the best boyfriend (spoiler: neither one of ‘em! ;)), so those may be of interest to you when we’re really talking full spectrum boyfriend material here?

So, let’s examine the potential boyfriend material we’ve got in two dead mass murderers, shall we? 😉

Eric would’ve been one hell of a jealous boyfriend, oh yes. He’d be the type to go “who was that guy?” when you were just talking with, say, an older cousin of yours he’d never met before. (Leaving you to go “dude that’s my cousin, chill!” or another variant on that chill-the-fuck-out theme..) He would be totally irrational about it, too. “Seeing ghosts where there are none”, as one of my best friends would say. He’d wedge himself between you and any potential perceived ‘threat’ in this overbearing and overprotective manner, too. He’d really have to learn to not go “where are you going who are you with can I come what are you doing on the weekend do you have some time for me” 24/7, you know? (I’ve compared him to a lost puppy before somewhere but I think by the 20th round of this you wouldn’t be going “aww cute” anymore.. you’d be going “shut the hell up before I murder you” instead.) But, it has to be said: dude would’ve spoiled a girl like crazy. Girl would’ve been his whole world. He was very loyal to the people who were loyal and kind to him. Would’ve absolutely been the type to show up with flowers and open the door for you and all that olde-worldly gentlemanly stuff. It seems to have been how he was raised. =) He’d be respectful of you. Cautious around you, even, and possibly even worried about upsetting you or disappointing you.

Dylan, on the other hand, would appear as much less needy on the surface. He would appear perfectly fine doing his own thing and doing things without you. He would be pretty easygoing overall, not really dragging you into any long arguments or being a fool about things the way Eric sometimes was. If there’s one thing he wasn’t, though, it was submissive. (I am not taking bedroom activities into account here, ladies and gents, so shush.. I realise that he may very well have been submissive in that particular field. ;)) I always see Dylan as the perfect mediator. He would be quiet and unassuming, but fully aware of what was going on in everybody’s lives and how to best approach everybody if he worked up the nerve to do so. As a result, he would appear as submissive. Until you pushed him on something he really didn’t agree with. That’s when you’d probably hear a lion’s roar or a very quiet but forceful comment like that “get in the car” he directed at Eric one time. I think Dylan was very sensitive to everybody’s moods and didn’t want to make a nuisance of himself, so he elected to stay quiet a lot of the time. He’d be hard to get to know even as a boyfriend, I think. There’d be this huge part of him wanting to share every aspect of his life with you.. and another part of him infinitely scared that you would step on his heart if he opened up. He would put you on that freakin’ pedestal and never give up on you, though, once you won his trust and confidence. (Which, really, is a daunting place to be on within any relationship..)

Do you think Eric and Dylan would’ve like girls that moaned in bed?

I think so? I mean, what kind of dude doesn’t like to make a girl moan in bed? (Unless you’re into the whole lifeless corpse sort of deal but that’s another thing altogether and so totally not where I was going with this answer..) I think they’d be pretty pleased with the moans of encouragement, don’t you? 😉

Can you describe Eric’s perfect girl? I’ve heard Dylan’s and now I’m curious about Eric’s

Look no further!

I think I waffled quite enough in that post of mine to make it count as a full answer, right? I mixed what I believe he thought he wanted in with what he really wanted, anyway.. hope it’s to your liking. =)

churchofcolumbine:

“It’s a good thing most people bleed on the inside or this would be a gory, blood-smeared earth.” ― Beatrice Sparks

Hi, I once saw a post, where Eric had made some bane/level on doom, and had asked people to give him some bloody credit/comment, I don’t exactly remember. I have been looking everywhere and I can’t find it, can you please post it? :)

I don’t recall that post, exactly, so I haven’t been able to locate that exact one for you.. but I did find what I think you’re looking for! It was in the ‘read me’-file that was attached to one of the Doom-wads he created:

Title                   : U.A.C. LABS  
Filename                : uaclabs.zip
Author                  : Eric Harris
Email Address           : REBD…@aol.com
Misc. Author Info       : Whatsup all you doomers out there! REB here, bringin you another kick-ass doom2 wad! This one took a damn long time to do, so send me some bloody credit man! Sorry the file is so damn big, but you know how it is when you change sprites…well,
you should know if you’ve every made wads like this.
Enjoy the new death frames, made em all myself!

I got tagged to do this question by everlasting-contrast and am passing this question on to death-beautiful and ericharrisblog.. =)

“if you could write a letter to any killer (dead or alive) who would it be and why? answer this and then forward it (anon or not) to two blogs you really like! ”

Hm, in keeping with my blog.. I would (of course) write to both Eric and Dylan. I’d really want to pick Dylan’s brain on metaphysical stuff, while I’d love to just get into a written argument with Eric and watch the hypocritical ass spin himself ‘round in circles. *laughs* I think that it’d be neat to be able to write to and maybe even with them instead of about them all the time.

*ponders* I’d probably also write to Lee Harvey Oswald in a last-ditch effort to figure out if my conspiracy-filled brain is right, and of the actual killers alive today I would probably reach out to James Holmes because he just seems so damn lost in his own mind and it tugs at my heartstrings a bit.

mrs-ericharris:

Peter Hovarth: Dean of Students at CHS

• Explains how Susan White came into the office and told him and Mr. D that a student had been shot
• One of his first duties as Dean of the school had been to provide disciplinary action to Zach Heckler, Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris for hacking into the school computer system, fall of 1997
• He met with the boys parents, Zach got 5 days suspension, Eric and Dylan each got 3 days
• Eric Harris’ parents were nice and very educated, they were co-operative but did not agree with the punishment due to Eric’s “minor involvement”.
• Describes Dylan’s father as an “Einstein”, stating he was very intelligent and he also did not agree with the punishment.
• Had seen Dylan in a trench coat once or twice that year (1999)  but had never seen Eric in a trench and said Eric was a “preppy dresser and clean cut”.
• Stated he wasn’t shocked because he saw potential n both boys for an “evil side”.
• Had not dealt any disciplinary action toward Eric except for the hacking incident, but had dealt with Dylan in the spring of 1998 for scratching “something” into a freshmans locker
• Dylan became agitated while he waited for his father and began to pace the room, Peter tried to calm him down and Dylan started “cussing” at him. Dylan was very upset with the school system. Peter got the impression Dylan was an “angry kid” and was upset with his dad and stuff at home.
• About 3-4 weeks prior to the incident, Eric and Dylan approached him and told him they were having some problems with a student name Luke Crowley (possibly Lucas Crawley) that was parking to close to one of their cars and was “mouthy” to them. Eric and Dylan were polite, respectful and calm about the situation.
• Eric and Dylan were usually together when he saw them.
• Described them as “brilliant kids”
• Dylan Klebold was brought in  to his office about a month prior to the incident for suspicion of smoking pot, but was cleared of the allegation.
• Described Eric as a shy kid but that Dylan was direct, mature and outspoken.

carlingx:

“The most frequent policy lesson drawn following the Columbine school shootings was the need for more gun controls. Review of the details of both Columbine and other contemporary school shootings indicates, however, that the specific gun control mea- sures proposed in their aftermath were largely irrelevant and almost certainly could not have prevented the incidents or reduced their death tolls. These measures included restrictions on gun shows, child access prevention laws mandating locking up guns, and bans on assault weapons. Ironically, exploitation of school shootings for the advocacy of irrelevant gun controls may have obscured the genuine merits of various gun control measures for reducing “ordinary” gun violence. Thus, mass school shootings provided the worst possible basis for supporting gun control.”

For anyone who is into scholarly articles about Columbine, I read this one for a criminology class and it’s really good. Kleck talks about how certain tougher gun laws would have not made much of a difference in regards to Columbine. He pays specific attention to the types of guns used and how they were obtained. Super interesting read.