Thank you for your continued follows, support, messages, and likes/reblogs of the past year! Wishing you and your loved ones a killer 2016 – hope it’ll be fantabulous!

darklybrightconfusion:

thedragonrampant:

Everybody’s always yakking on about how they “do not condone” and want to eradicate events like Columbine from existence, so listen up for a second and please try to comprehend the following.

If you genuinely believe that violence is not the answer to anyone’s problems, then you should enforce that belief in actions and in words. Violence is not just a punch to the face or a gun to your head. Violence is also in the words that tell people they’re not good enough, that speak of “you are different from me and I hate that you do not fold to my view of this world”, that become a call to arms for others to band together against someone who somehow found themselves on the outskirts of a group. Violence is not always in-your-face loud. Sometimes, it’s insidious. Sometimes, it’s poison rather than a gunshot.

If you genuinely have gotten it into your head that people are not allowed to make mistakes, that people are not allowed to learn and grow from their wrongdoings, that people are not able to move away from their past and better their futures.. then how do you think you would fare if you came face to face with Eric and Dylan? Would you judge them for their mistakes and tell them that they cannot atone for their crimes no matter what they do? Or would you, as I’ve heard so many of you claim, forgive them and love them regardless? Because if it’s the latter, then I see quite a few of you go down the road of the former toward other people who are still alive and able to change their future behaviour the way Eric and Dylan no longer can.

If you seriously think that bullying and meanness has a place in the future of mankind, then sit the fuck back down and think long and hard about that idea. And then contemplate something else in light of this: do onto others as you would have them do onto you. Be gentle, be kind, be peaceful – they’re not just hollow phrases, they are a choice. A choice we’ve all been given. A choice we make when we decide to close our eyes and count to ten. Or to twenty. Or to a hundred. A choice we make whenever we decide to engage or disengage in arguments and discussions. A choice that is harder than jumping down people’s throats, a choice that isn’t about winning or about being proven right, a choice that isn’t about gaining power or the upper hand.. A choice that isn’t about putting people down to the so-called betterment of yourself. You know what’s remarkable about that choice? That choice doesn’t leave you feeling hollowed out and terrible. That choice leaves you feeling full of something this world needs a hell of a lot more of: love.

Love isn’t weak. Kindness and forgiveness isn’t weak. Absence of violence isn’t weak. They’re strong. They’re sometimes even hard to live by. But they’re worth giving a shot. That’s what not condoning really means. That’s what “never again another Columbine” truly entails. They’re not empty phrases. They’re quite full of something.. more.

But isn’t that sad that humans only seem to learn through tragedy? 

I think that humans learn best through any event that shakes up the status quo and has an emotional impact. Often, those events are tinged with tragedy and make us experience things like loss and grief. We are left changed by those partially because we would like to prevent them or spare others from experiencing them, but also because they make us aware of our own inner strength and role in the happenings. Other times, these events have the potential to actually be happy ones: for instance, speak with a new mother about her childbirth experience and you will find a woman who was left invariably changed through the experience.

We learn from everything that causes us one of these two feelings: pain or joy. We have learned to focus on the former through the treatment of it in media and in our lives – fear and anger and disgust and sadness are part of our everyday lives as appropriate pain responses, because we were conditioned to believe those are the way to handle pain. I believe that more focus on the latter, more focus on what brings us joy, could go a long way into becoming an appropriate response to pain too and that maybe our experiences with joy can change the language of tragedy.

rainflesh:

The tape stops again and when it starts, Eric Harris is alone in a moving car. The camera seems to be mounted on the car’s dashboard. It’s dark out and there are raindrops on the window. At one point he passes a street sign that reads “Federal”. There’s music playing loudly, making it hard at times to understand what Eric is saying. At one point he mentions “The Black Jack Crew” [Eric and Dylan worked at Blackjack Pizza], specifically mentioning “Jason” and “Chris”.

Eric: “You guys are very cool. Sorry, dudes. I had to do what I had to do.”

Eric also makes mention of “Angel”, “Phil”, and “Bob”.

Eric: “Bob is one of the coolest guys I’ve ever met in my life, except for being an alcoholic.” Eric says he’s going to miss Bob. “It’s a weird feeling knowing you’re going to be dead in two and a half weeks.”

Eric says he can’t decide “if we should do it before or after prom”. At the end of this section of the tape Harris says he wishes he could have re-visited Michigan and “old friends”. He falls silent then and appears to start crying, wiping a tear from the left side of his face. He shuts the camera off. 

Late March – Early April, 1999

I’m trying to draw Eric a little bit more so here’s a photoset based on an excerpt from the Basement Tapes 😦

Everybody’s always yakking on about how they “do not condone” and want to eradicate events like Columbine from existence, so listen up for a second and please try to comprehend the following.

If you genuinely believe that violence is not the answer to anyone’s problems, then you should enforce that belief in actions and in words. Violence is not just a punch to the face or a gun to your head. Violence is also in the words that tell people they’re not good enough, that speak of “you are different from me and I hate that you do not fold to my view of this world”, that become a call to arms for others to band together against someone who somehow found themselves on the outskirts of a group. Violence is not always in-your-face loud. Sometimes, it’s insidious. Sometimes, it’s poison rather than a gunshot.

If you genuinely have gotten it into your head that people are not allowed to make mistakes, that people are not allowed to learn and grow from their wrongdoings, that people are not able to move away from their past and better their futures.. then how do you think you would fare if you came face to face with Eric and Dylan? Would you judge them for their mistakes and tell them that they cannot atone for their crimes no matter what they do? Or would you, as I’ve heard so many of you claim, forgive them and love them regardless? Because if it’s the latter, then I see quite a few of you go down the road of the former toward other people who are still alive and able to change their future behaviour the way Eric and Dylan no longer can.

If you seriously think that bullying and meanness has a place in the future of mankind, then sit the fuck back down and think long and hard about that idea. And then contemplate something else in light of this: do onto others as you would have them do onto you. Be gentle, be kind, be peaceful – they’re not just hollow phrases, they are a choice. A choice we’ve all been given. A choice we make when we decide to close our eyes and count to ten. Or to twenty. Or to a hundred. A choice we make whenever we decide to engage or disengage in arguments and discussions. A choice that is harder than jumping down people’s throats, a choice that isn’t about winning or about being proven right, a choice that isn’t about gaining power or the upper hand.. A choice that isn’t about putting people down to the so-called betterment of yourself. You know what’s remarkable about that choice? That choice doesn’t leave you feeling hollowed out and terrible. That choice leaves you feeling full of something this world needs a hell of a lot more of: love.

Love isn’t weak. Kindness and forgiveness isn’t weak. Absence of violence isn’t weak. They’re strong. They’re sometimes even hard to live by. But they’re worth giving a shot. That’s what not condoning really means. That’s what “never again another Columbine” truly entails. They’re not empty phrases. They’re quite full of something.. more.

vodkakleblog:

For a community in love with two boys who shot up their school due to bullying, it sure happens a lot here. jfc. 

is there more columbine fanfic like just eric and dylan like no ocs because i really liked the Christmas one!

Thank you, I’m glad you liked the Christmas one! I wrote one other tiny non-serious post about them finding the Columbiner community in response to an ask once, but I wouldn’t classify that as fanfic by any means.. so there’s nothing more from me in the fanfic department. I know that some in the community have written some amazing poetry and stuff on Eric’s/Dylan’s behalf, but (non-romantic) stories with just them are a little harder to come by.

If anyone has some good stuff to share, please shoot me an ask or reblog this so my anon can read more! ^^

What exactly do we know about Eric and Dylan’s suicide?

We know the following things for sure or are able to deduce the following from evidence given:

• Dylan and Eric returned to the library and exchanged shots with law enforcement. Shots were fired between 12:02h and 12:05h, after which no more shots attributed to Dylan/Eric were heard.
• The only survivors left in the library were Lisa Kreutz and Patrick Ireland, with an additional small number of people hiding in the back rooms adjacent to the library. Both Lisa and Patrick were critically injured and reportedly slipped in and out of consciousness at the time.
• Because of the cover fire that was ongoing during the rescue operations outside, the witnesses in/near the library were unable to pinpoint the exact moment in time on which Eric and Dylan killed themselves.
• The smoke alarm on the ceiling in the library was activated at 12:08h. It was located directly above the area where the bodies of Eric and Dylan were later found.
• The fire that triggered the smoke alarm was reportedly caused by a molotov cocktail that had been placed on a library table near their bodies.
• A CBI arson investigator later concluded that there was evidence on the table and near the bodies of Eric and Dylan that indicated that the suicides took place prior to the molotov cocktail catching fire. (I believe they found human tissue as the ‘evidence’ they indicate here.)
• Eric died instantly from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the roof of his mouth. He was located in front of the bookcase in what is assumed to have been a squatting/crouching position, leading him to slump over against it after his suicide. Both the bookcase and the ceiling above him were splattered with his brain matter.
• Dylan died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the left side of his head, though it is assumed he did not die instantly due to the presence of aspiration blood in his lower airway and lungs. He was positioned in front and to the left side of Eric. It is assumed that he was the one to light the molotov cocktail. A small pile of his belongings was placed in his bodybag, which indicates that he removed them at some point prior to his suicide.
• Eric died before Dylan. There are quite a few indications to this, but one of the strongest is the fact that Dylan’s head landed on/near Eric’s left knee when he toppled sideways post-gunshot. You can see some of Dylan’s remains on and near Eric’s leg in the suicide photos.
• There are no released photographs of the original positions the boys were found in, nor are there many detailed descriptions from law enforcement concerning the exact positions and circumstances the boys were found in. Some evidence and unused weaponry found on their bodies are described in more-or-less detail, but the same cannot be said for their positions. It is assumed that no photographs exist of the original positions they were found in, due to the fact that bomb squad and other officials searched their bodies for booby traps and explosives prior to the arrival of the forensic specialists.
• Investigation confirmed that Eric and Dylan were dead by 12:30h, though their bodies were found only three hours later.
• The “one-two-three!” report from Patti Nielson was guesswork and not factual reality. (See also this post.)
• Lisa Kreutz reported hearing “are you still with me? we’re still gonna do this, right?” at one of the instances where Eric and Dylan were about to enter the library, but the lack of other witnesses confirming this has led myself and others to suggest that it may have been upon their second and not their first entry into the library.
• Patrick Ireland heard someone coughing after the fire alarm jolted him back into consciousness. Seeing as Patrick was located near table 15 where Eric and Dylan killed themselves, it might be proof of Dylan having lived for at least a brief while after the gunshot wound to the head.

Your Christmas story was absolutely incredible! i couldn’t stop smiling. Definitely one of my most favourites ever.

Thank you very much! I’m glad it’s among your favourites and that the reaction you had to it was a happy one. I was so apprehensive about posting it that the reactions like yours do a world of good when it comes to setting me at ease about it.. =)

Do u know how Eric and Dylan actually celebrated Christmas of 1998? Oh my god that hurts my heart to think about

I currently don’t recall anything offhand that refers to their Christmas celebrations outright, no.. I suppose they were together with their family, or I at least hope they were. =) It hurts my heart too, especially because they knew it was their last one. I can’t imagine that it was easy to get swept up in the festivities knowing that next year’s Christmas would be hell for their families. I think that the holiday season might’ve provided a bit of waver.. at least a temporary one. However, Eric’s journal entries (one-liner-y though they are) before and after the festivities are monofocused on the massacre..

what kind of accent did eric have??? new york accent or something??? sorry I’m like new to this stuff 😣

He sounds very Midwestern to my (foreign-to-English) ears, but I’ve also heard people refer to it as a “Frankenaccent” from time to time. He grew up in Ohio, Michigan and New York for the most part so a lot of his accent would be determined by the accents they have in those states. You can hear the difference in pronounciation quite well when compared to the Coloradoan accent that Dylan and most of their friends sport. Eric’s voice was the first I learned to distinguish from the others because of the difference in accent. =)

A Very Reb & Vodka Christmas

It’s the season for me to do what I normally do not make a habit of doing on this blog. I’ve debated with myself a long time over writing it and giving it the time of day – after all, writing what can constitute as ‘fanfiction’ about Eric and Dylan isn’t always so appreciated. But, well, it’s Christmas..

.. and the idea of Reb and Vodka baking Christmas cookies together wouldn’t leave me the hell alone.

Recipes mentioned in this piece are as follows, in case anyone feels like making some yummy treats:

[x] Winter Delight Peppermint Cake
[x] Gingerbread Brownies
[x] Everything Sweet Sugar Cookies

Enjoy, and happy holidays!

It was the night before Christmas.

Actually, it was the early morning before. Not that there was much difference between the two to one Dylan Klebold.

He rubbed his eyes tiredly as he walked over to his friend’s house. He wasn’t sure why Eric had called him in what sounded like one of the typical “I need your help and I need it right now”-frenzies. He was quite sure how it would wind up, however: with him desperately wishing to crawl back into bed while Eric danced around him in a mixture of fury and hellbent organisation.

Dylan cringed as his feet landed on gravel. They’d spent their fair time tiptoeing on it about a year ago, back when there were still rebel missions and the world was somehow a little less complicated. He couldn’t count the amount of times they’d attempted to sneak soundlessly back into Eric’s house after a night of terrorising the town. It seemed almost like a lifetime ago.

Next year would see more terror than this town had ever experienced, though. Dylan smiled vaguely to himself as he rang the doorbell. He waited a moment. Listened intently for any kind of noise to come from the hallway behind the door. The Harris house was silent as the grave. He sighed. Rang the doorbell a second time.

He was rewarded for his troubles almost immediately. A sliver of light appeared behind the door – and began to grow. Excited yapping greeted his ears almost right after. He cringed a little as he heard tiny scratches at the other side of the door. Of course Eric hadn’t thought to contain the dog.

The door swung open. He stepped back involuntarily, scanning the ground near his shoes – no way was he gonna let Sparky get the best of his shoelaces again. Laughter reached his ears soon after.

“Relax, Sparky isn’t getting past my shoes,” remarked his friend’s voice amusedly. “I swear to god, V, you’re getting worse with your dog aversion every day.”

“He’s too unpredictable,” complained Dylan as he finally spotted the tiny Yorkshire terrier hiding behind Eric’s feet, “and you spoil him rotten.” That much, at least, was true. He was quite sure that there would’ve been nothing but dogs in Eric’s potential future. That, and some sort of explosive stuff. “You treat that dog like he’s your child or something. Nothing distur-”

He paused as his eyes took in the sight before him. Blinked. Rubbed his eyes again for good measure. Nope. It was still there. He blinked at his friend owlishly.

“Don’t start,” grumbled Eric.

“You’re wearing a-”

“I know.”

“But it has got..”

“I know it has flowers on it.” Eric’s voice brooked no argument. “It’s my mom’s.”

“And you’re wearing it, why?” Dylan was really trying to hold back his laughter. His lips curled into a smile. It was really something. “Why the fuck would you even do that, man, oh my god..”

Eric raked his hand through his short hair uncertainly. He looked remarkably awake for the time of day and had even gotten dressed in his usual bandshirt and BDUs. But it weren’t those that drew attention. No, what really set the ensemble off was the very colourful, very flowery, very frilly apron that currently covered the rebellious attire. Dylan sniggered. Eric made a noise of discontent at the back of his throat that rather sounded like an angry cat.

“I don’t want any flour or powdered sugar to land on my clothes,” he fussed back at Dylan. “Now get your ass inside, we’ve got some baking to do.”

“You seriously called me at 7am and told me to come in at around 9am on the day before Christmas because you want to make something in the kitchen that isn’t napalm?” wondered Dylan out loud as he followed Eric into the house and shut the door behind him. He sighed as Sparky sized up his shoes and yapped at him excitedly. “Yeah, doggie, your daddy’s lost the plot all right..”

“Don’t call me his daddy,” warned Eric, “and yeah I fucking called you for that, you need to help me out here. Mom already baked the peppermint cake last night and I told her I would make the brownies and the cookies..”

“Why would you do that?”

Dylan took in the state of the kitchen that lay before him with a vague sense of alarm. He didn’t see the peppermint cake Eric had mentioned anywhere, but the counter and the table both looked like warzones that had been bombed with baking materials and ingredients. Flour and powdered sugar had even made their way onto the normally pristine floor. The radio that was usually turned up to volume unbearable was twinkling out a soft Christmas-y tune.

“Dude, it’s like freakin’ housewife central in here!”

“Dude, shut up, it’s fucking Christmas,” replied Eric, “and it’s kind of our last one and I’ve been making these cookies since I was old enough to pronounce the word.” He sighed as he stepped around the flour contaminations on the floor. “I just keep dropping stuff because I’ve been up since, like, 4am. I already finished the gingerbread brownies!”

“Oh god,” lamented Dylan, “you’re having a nostalgia attack. You called me in for a nostalgia attack. I could be in my bed right now but noooo, Eric Harris is feeling the Christmas Cheer of 1998 and so the whole world must share in the terror.” He paused. Backtracked mentally. “Did you just mention gingerbread brownies?”

Eric grinned at him and gestured at the table beside the oven gleefully. Upon the festive cloth that covered it lay a tray filled with gooey brownies, neatly carved into bitesized pieces. So that’s where the smell of overwhelmingly yummy stuff was coming from. Dylan inhaled deeply and closed his eyes. Licked his lips almost involuntarily. He opened his eyes again and decisively announced: “I guess your plan doesn’t suck”.

“Good, now wash your hands and give me a hand making the cookie batter.”

“What kind of cookies are we making anyway?” asked Dylan conversationally as he washed and dried his hands. “If you’ve already got gingerbread brownies, the cookies should be something other than gingerbread. Or peppermint, for that matter, given your mom’s cake.”

“Sugar cookies,” replied Eric. “They’ve got icing and stuff on them. Dad hates them because they ruin your teeth like no tomorrow. I already made the icing and everything but not the cookies.” Then, in almost the same breath: “Can you grab the cups off the top shelf please?”

“Sure thing, shortbread,” laughed Dylan. He reached over Eric’s head and grabbed the cups with ease. “I’ll be your personal ladder for the day.”

“More like a stepping stool,” muttered Eric. “I ain’t that short.”

Dylan looked down at Eric. Raised his eyebrow. “Coulda fooled me,” he quipped as he handed Eric the cups. “Do you need anything else from this or can I close it?”

“Close it. I’ve already got all the stuff we need on the counter. Mostly.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Uhh.. crack the egg?” offered Eric with a grin. He put a cup in front of Dylan. “Here,” he said as he grabbed the egg off the counter, “catch!” He made a tossing motion in Dylan’s direction. The resulting flinch was greeted with more laughter. “Dude, you’re so easy..” Eric carefully placed the egg in front of Dylan.

“How many eggs do you need?”

“Just the one, if you do it right.” Eric grabbed four of the cups Dylan had removed from the cupboard and poured sugar into one of them. He stopped briefly to shake the pile of sugar that had formed in the cup into a smooth surface. “It’s not very complicated.”

Dylan proudly observed the cracked egg in his cup. “I know, this is supereasy so far,” he commented. “Easier than making pizza.”

Eric leaned over. His brow creased. His nose wrinkled. “There’s eggshells in there,” he complained. “Grab a spoon and pick them out.”

“Where the fuck do you even see eggshells?” replied Dylan, peering down at the cup like he’d never seen it before in his life. Eric jabbed a finger at some tiny specks in the cup. “Are you fucking serious? They’re so small. You won’t even taste them in the damn cookies!”

“Get them out. I know they’re in there, so the cookies will taste like shit.” Eric’s accent became more pronounced as he clipped his words. “Grab the damn spoon.”

“You grab the spoon. Fish them out yourself,” decided Dylan, “and I’ll do the other cups.” He shoved the spoon into Eric’s direction. “You’re so fucking finnicky.”

“Yeah, well, you eat anything, even the stuff you really shouldn’t eat because it sucks,” griped Eric. He did grab the spoon, though. “Honestly, I don’t see what’s so hard, you have to crack eggs with feeling and not smash them over cups like they’re bombs or something.”

“Like you’re so careful with things,” grumbled Dylan good-naturedly. “You almost murdered your face with that gun last time you were aiming it and going pew-pew-motherfuckers at the top of your voice..”

“That was one time!”

“Am I measuring this right? How many cups of flour do you even need? Come to think of it, why don’t you just.. um.. use one cup for all three batches?”

“Because then the measurement won’t be perfect, duh.”

Dylan shrugged to himself. He knew better than to argue with Eric over getting things done perfectly. To him, ‘just right’ often already did the trick. Not to his friend, though. Dylan watched Eric intently attempt to fish out the remaining eggshell. He sighed inwardly. Eric seemed perpetually highstrung these days, alternating between snide anger and a roiling restlessness. Not for the first time, Dylan wondered why things couldn’t just be good enough for Eric. He knew better than to ask.

Eric put a bowl that already contained butter in front of him and indicated the sugar. Dylan poured it into the bowl. He threw a questioning glance at Eric, seeing that the latter was dragging out another bowl.

“It’s for the flour and the baking powder and stuff,” commented Eric in reply. “You have to add all the dry stuff together and whisk it together first so the eventual dough becomes a little more fluffy.” He rolled his eyes at Dylan’s incredulous look. “Do you remember that my mom will literally cook and bake anything she can get her hands on? Where do you think I learned this? I was like three years old when she first let me whisk that stuff.”

“I don’t think mom and I ever did that sort of thing,” offered Dylan loudly over the sound of the mixer. “I don’t really remember, but I think she got most of the cookies from the store back in the day. We still do.”

“That’s a damn shame, V. Do you wanna whisk that stuff together?”

“Uh, yeah..”

“Like you whisk an egg before you make it,” instructed Eric. “Add the teaspoons of vanilla and almond extract the minute you get the worst clumps out.”

They stood side by side in companionable silence for a while, mixing and whisking their respective halves of the recipe together. They glanced at each other’s bowls every so often. Dylan’s stomach grumbled in response.

“Oh for the love of-” commented Eric with a smile, “start mixing in your half. You sound like you’re starving. Not all at fucking once, though!”

“I’m not stupid,” fussed Dylan at him. He carefully shoveled small portions from his bowl into Eric’s. “You’re one to talk, by the way. Looks like you had a small powdered sugar disaster earlier..” He gestured at the floor.

Eric glanced at it, too. “Kev’s the last one who used this fucking mixer – mom’s got a totally pro one I’m not allowed to even touch – and he didn’t think to dial it back down before he switched it off..” He huffed in annoyance. “So I turn the damn thing on this morning, thinking I’ll make the icing and everything, and bam! Explosion all over the kitchen and over Sparky. And over myself.”

“Hence the apron?”

“Hence the apron,” confirmed Eric sourly.

“You look ridiculous.”

“If you breathe a word of this to anyone, you’re fucking dead.”

“I will treasure it in silence, believe me,” snorted Dylan. He finished pouring in the last remnants of the flour mix. “You and flowers.. it doesn’t mix. It’s like Hitler in lederhosen.”

“Thank you.” Eric raised his eyebrow at Dylan as he turned the mixer down a notch. “At least I won’t go down in history wearing this apron.”

“A new NBK outfit!” exclaimed Dylan. “I should get a matching one.”

“Dude, that’s fucking gay.”

“It’s fucking genius. Nobody suspects the apron.”

Eric paused. Pinched the bridge of his nose. Contemplated. “Yeah, you got a point,” he conceded, “but I still think our soldiers of death and destruction look is way cooler. No aprons!”

“The last time you also told me no capes. Capes are cool.”

“Capes make you look like the Caucasian surfer version of Dracula. And I fucking stumbled over mine.”

“Can I roll the dough?”

“Uh, sure, just don’t spread it too thin. Those cookies start weighing once we put icing and candy on them and I don’t want them to break.”

“Broken cookies are just as tasty,” replied Dylan. He took a small part of the dough and licked it off his finger. “This tastes good so far, too.”

“That’s so fucking unsanitary,” griped Eric.

“Get in the bowl,” countered Dylan, waving the bowl of dough at Eric. “You know you want it.”

“You’re also massively creepy in the early morning.” Eric contemplated the bowl. Then, almost seemed to contemplate Dylan’s smile. He finally dipped in one finger and took a very small bite of dough. “Oh well. Last Christmas, right?”

“You’re hung up on that,” commented Dylan as he rolled the dough out on the counter. Rolling the dough was like making pizza, which Eric never really complained much about. “Why does it matter so much? Come to think of it, where are your folks?”

“Mom’s out on a Christmas shopping run.. don’t ask me what for, I have no idea, but she won’t be back for hours. Dad’s gone to get some stuff done for work.” Eric shrugged. “I just feel like I want to give them something nice to remember, you know? Bad enough we’re gonna pull that shit on them next year..”

“Second thoughts?”

“Nah. Just.. it’s the season for nice things. Makes me wish I had more nice things. And I want to give them nice things. Does that make sense?”

Dylan finished rolling the dough and glanced at Eric, who now looked and sounded even more agitated than usual. He nodded. “Yeah, it does.” And, well, it did make a perfectly stupid and sentimental sense all of a sudden. “Can I take some of these home, dude? My mom would love the angel cookies.”

“Yeah, sure,” replied Eric after a moment. He handed Dylan some of the cookie cutters. “I’ll even wrap them for you once we’ve decorated them. Tell her you made them, she’ll love it.”

“I guess so.. Thanks, you know?”

Dylan desperately hoped that Eric realised there was more hiding in that ‘thanks’ than just a thank-you-for-the-cookies. It was, well, essentially.. he supposed it was a thank-you-for-being-here. If one submitted to sentimental crap like that around Eric. Which he didn’t. Except that it was almost Christmas, and now he kind of did.

Eric seemed to understand. “Sure.”

They worked together in companionable silence for a while, though it was broken when Eric began to quietly hum along with the radio. Dylan smiled to himself as he transferred the cut-out dough onto the oven tray. Things weren’t so bad today. Even though the song Eric was humming was fucking atrocious.

“Last Christmas? Wham? Really?” he checked with Eric.

“Shut up.” Eric slammed the oven door shut after putting the tray in. “Don’t mock my Christmas cheer.”

“I wasn’t!”

“Liar.”

“Pants on fire?”

“You got it.”

“You know, you’re the least scary person ever right now.” Dylan grinned as he took in Eric’s apron, the starting-right-back-up-where-he-left humming, and the tiny dog dancing around Eric’s feet waiting for a treat. “Hard to believe this is really it, though.”

“Really what?”

“Our last Christmas,” said Dylan quietly as he leaned against the counter. “Next year, we won’t be here. And it’ll be because we did something awesome but terrible.”

Eric shrugged. Bent down to pet Sparky’s head. “It’ll come when it does,” he offered enigmatically. “No use bitching about something that’s four months away, bro. Let’s just enjoy the holidays, huh? For what it’s worth.”

“Sure.”

“Mhm.”

A pause. A long one.

Then..

“Merry Christmas, Reb.”

“Merry Christmas, Vodka.”

Building ‘Reb’

glock-selection:

thedragonrampant:

Keep reading

This is incredible. Bravo @thedragonrampant. Beautiful insight. Perfect. Thank-you so much for taking the time to write and share this with our community.

Thank you very much! I’m glad to hear (and see, from the notes – holy shit you guys what happened?!) that you enjoy it so much.. It’s honestly one of the pieces that ran away from me while I was writing it and that really made me comprehend “just Eric” through the writing process alone. It’s special to me and it’s joyful for me to see how much people are taking to it and sharing it. ♥

Dylan and Eric’s deaths make me so depressed :'( I don’t know w h y it just hurts my heart and makes me feel sad ahhhhh fuck, trying to picture myself as them in highschool and their days and lives leading up to them going in and actually shooting people and committing a crime they know is gunna end in there death makes me feel so upset and so unfathomable wow

It’s tough, isn’t it? I have these days on which I’m absolutely fine researching and talking about Columbine, and then there are days when the mere thought of it halts me in my tracks and makes me sit down feeling overwhelmingly.. mournful? I’ve always thought that I feel it so strongly because I had such a crap high school experience myself and have so many good things going for me now – it makes me wish so much that they had stayed and had allowed others to stay as well. I’ve got the experience that you can survive anything life throws at you when you have the support system and willpower to make it happen. And it makes me wish so badly that someone had been there for Eric and Dylan as much as people were there for me, that they had learned to survive and work with their strengths and talents. That sense of loss, of could-have-been, of all the things that could have been prevented if.. I think that’s what gets to us most.

I think that a lot of us maybe don’t know how to get away from the upset. How to step away from something that we identify with for whatever reason, for whatever feeling. I think that’s particularly true for those still in high school: you’re essentially living a version of their reality through your age and your position in the world. You’re still trying to determine who you are, what your identity is, and what this means and what you can do with it. And I do think that the boys help as much as they harm in this respect. It gets clearer for yourself eventually and you will live through the hurt dealt to you, but it never gets easier to realise that we’re still here and those fifteen people we know the names and faces and so much more of are not.

How come some people stated they saw the shooters wearing masks? Eric and Dylan didn’t have any masks..?

They did have them, or at least Eric had a balaclava and Dylan was reported as maybe having worn a knit ski cap.. but I’m not sure how or if those were used. It would stand to reason that they would have been discarded very early on in the massacre if they were used, as many of the witness statements don’t include these. I wrote a bit about the mask-option here.

As for why some people stated they saw the shooters wearing masks.. I seem to recall that a lot of the initial media reports had the shooters in balaclavas and trenchcoats. Witnesses were influenced and impacted hugely by the media presence. If you read the evidence files, that becomes very clear.. I cannot count the amount of times a witness identified Eric/Dylan with the aid of the photos that had come out in the media, nor can I count the amount of times a witness recalled one thing initially but then altered it after hearing a media account of the day. There was no real effort made on law enforcement’s part to keep their key witnesses away from the media: even the library witnesses were subject to the media coverage. Many of the witnesses weren’t interviewed straight away and we all know that trauma and hearing differentiating accounts will impact a witness statement greatly to begin with.

So what happened is that maybe one or two witnesses reported a ski mask being worn by the boys and those statements made it into the media.. and other witnesses heard these statements and had their own memories of the event altered because of this. It’s very easy to have your memory of a traumatic event changed like this – you will remember the core of it perfectly, but the details blur and run together and change a lot without you even being aware that they do.

How long has it took you to get through the 11k? Months?

Hm, I don’t recall it being months.. then again, I’m a pretty fast reader so it probably took me a few weeks? (I don’t really recall, though, as it’s been a few years since I did that.) And let me tell you, you just keep on reading when you hit a particularly good part of it. In the beginning, everything is so new and you’re trying to get the best impression of the case and the boys you can possibly get and yeah it’ll end up with you reading that thing when you really really really should get some sleep.. I really liked that phase where everything was brand new information instead of things you’d seen a million times before. =)

Have you read majority of the 11K?

Yes, I have! When I first started researching the case, I pretty much went through it cover-to-cover (so to speak) to get a real feel for what happened and what led up to it. Some sections aren’t quite so interesting in hindsight, but you can’t know that beforehand. I go through it nowadays, too, but more fragmented.. though I always end up reading more than just the information I was looking for!

Why don’t you like Dave Cullen’s book? I’m sure you’ve answered this question a million times but I really am brand new to all this, just looking around really. And everyone’s mad shit talking this guy, so I’m curious as to why. Thanks :)

Whoops, just found all of your posts about Dave Cullen’s book. No need to answer my last question about that. Awesome, thanks!

I really appreciate that you came back to my inbox to tell me that you’ve stumbled upon my delicious takedowns of his idiocy in the meantime, but I will literally take any opportunity presented to me to educate the masses on how wrong Dave Cullen is. 😉 (Cool that you’re brand new to this, by the way – I hope you’ll enjoy picking up some good info and learn some interesting things!)

So, let’s make a shortlist of “five reasons why you should never take Dave Cullen’s pile of trash seriously”.. =D

1. He says he has spent ten years researching and writing the book. This is most likely true, but he has very little to show for it. A lot of his research is factually inaccurate, with one of the absolute highlights being his inclusion of Brenda Parker as Eric’s girlfriend. Parker’s involvement was already disproven in the evidence prior to the book’s release, if memory serves me correctly, and I would have expected Dave to commit to a public retraction of the statements he made about Parker all the same. He never did.
2. He relies wholly on the opinion of professional investigators such as Dwayne Fuselier (FBI). While I do think it’s important to include their opinions, I would have expected more criticism and second-guessing from Dave in regards to these. Many authors who’ve written about Columbine have formed their own theories and opinions on the boys and the case, but Dave seems to have absorbed nothing more than the professional status quo. It gives off the vibe that Dave is in cahoots with law enforcement to present the story the way they want it to be told. As law enforcement has made crucial mistakes in Columbine, this is not a happy cahoots whatsoever.
3. Talking about professionalism.. the inclusion of the psychopath theory for Eric is one of my main gripes with the book. It’s not that I can’t treat it as a (very minor) option for his personality, but it’s more that I am of the opinion that we cannot set a post-mortem diagnosis for Eric whatsoever! Psychiatric diagnoses are difficult and take a while to determine, for which the subject must be alive and able to communicate with investigators. The psychopathy checklist Dave refers to in his book was originally created by a professional who specifically stated “that the test should be considered valid ONLY IF administered by a
   suitably qualified and experienced clinician under scientifically
   controlled and licensed, standardised conditions”. None of these conditions have existed in the creation of this theory concerning Eric, but yet Dave and the other ‘professionals’ involved in the case treat the psychopath-thing as fact. (To make matters worse: this is the very tip of the iceberg when it comes to Dave’s misinformation concerning psychology and child development and the fact that he has utilised this wrongful information in a non-fiction book is astounding.)
4. Survivors such as Anne Marie Hochhalter have called Dave’s book “inaccurate and sensationalised”. The community in Littleton has taken up massive issue with Dave’s work. Brian Rohrbough and other parents were so incensed to learn that Dave would make an appearance on Oprah some years ago (alongside aforementioned Fuselier and investigator Kate Battan) that they contacted Oprah: Brian Rohrbough has gone on record as having said “if you’re going to put those liars on, you’re going to need to have someone there to refute them”.
5. Dave Cullen continues to appear in mass media, despite claiming that he hates speaking about the case. He is the media’s golden boy when it comes to mass shootings, but he utilises that influence to suggest atrocious ideas such as “don’t mention the shooter’s name”. (Anyone who’s actually in possession of intelligence will realise that taking away a name doesn’t take away the act and the reasons why the act was committed: wiping the slate clean name-wise doesn’t mean everything else can be shoved under the rug.) He also gives speeches on Columbine that are riddled with inaccuracies and more waffling: last I heard, he couldn’t even name Dylan’s important concept of “the everlasting contrast” correctly anymore!

all those things you mentioned in that post that makes you think dylan is a gifted child apply to me, when i was reading it.. how i am/my brain works was put into words.. kind of, for the most part. because i could never explain my thoughts and myself in words properly until i saw your post. but im HORRIBLE at remembering formulas, math concepts, so on.. I am complete utter shit at math. so does that make me not gifted? i mean, dylan had bad/average grades too i think?

itHow cool that it clicked something together for you! =) I hope it’s something that did you some good – I know the feeling of reading something you identify with that’s just like this luminous sense of “it’s in words!”, and I hope some of that post was that for you.

Giftedness is more than just intellectual prowess. IQ tests are notoriously unreliable when it comes to measuring intelligence, though they are good indicators of basic intelligence and mental state. Other characteristics of giftedness may include things like high reasoning abilities, creative thinking, excellent memory, high levels of associative thinking, and asynchronous development in relation to someone’s age level. It’s far more than just academic know-how.

Some people are gifted across the board. Others are gifted in one or two areas (musically gifted folks, for instance?) and yet again others do great in multiple areas but suck at math or language or puzzles or something else. I have trouble remembering math formulas/concepts myself because nobody explains the reasoning behind them, which is something my mind needs when it needs to remember something and be able to apply it. I could pass math when I had to, but never took to it the way I did to languages or history.

Dylan had pretty average grades, yes, from what we know of them.. We don’t really have much definite information on those, because we’ve got more school records from Eric than we do Dylan. Still, there is a sense of Dylan not applying himself in school. He could have done better than he did and even admits to that, but it’s like he just cannot be bothered to put in the effort. While I would agree that his probable depression made this worse for him, it’s also a very common thing for gifted kids to do once they’re on the verge of crashing out of the school system. They could be doing so many interesting things with their time, so why be forced to go through the step-by-step motions they always skip in their heads? One of my old therapists called it “the notorious underachieving brain” and that’s exactly what it is. (I always remember I used to calculate which grade I’d need to score a perfect average and then put in just enough effort to get that grade I’d calculated, lol.) So it’s not that Dylan couldn’t do well in school, but rather that he didn’t feel the need to. It didn’t challenge his brain, so he stopped putting in effort.

Eric self mutilated as well? The autopsy report showed little cuts

According to the autopsy, he lateral aspect of the left upper arm shows a small cluster of punctate lacerations and cuts. On the lateral aspect of the right upper arm, there’s a reddish-brown abrasion associated with purple contusion – a pretty nicely formed bruise by the looks of the description. His lower arms didn’t show anything remarkable, but both his upper arms obviously did. The bruise could be easily explained away as Eric having bumped into something, but the cluster of these puncture-like marks and cuts is a little tougher to explain. I originally thought he may have scraped against something (if Eric had half my level of clumsiness, that’d be a legit option), but the puncture-like quality associated with it makes me think it looked more like the marks you get from digging your nails into your skin really hard.

What I’m essentially saying is that, yes, it’s an option that he inflicted this upon himself. It’s a possibility, but not a fact. We know that he sometimes lost enough control of his emotions to punch a wall, causing direct physical injury or hurt to himself. There is no allusion to self-harm in Eric’s own writings as there is in Dylan’s, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t ever do it. I have this small hunch that he may have found it a weak part of himself somehow, not at all like the big angry dude he was pretending to be, and that it was a release valve only in the moments when he really just couldn’t cope anymore.

Insanely helpful, god bless you X

You’re very welcome! =) Glad to have been of assistance.