A person has to pull the trigger for that gun to do anything. And for a kid his age to have the willingness to do it so many times and take 13 lives in the process is scary. Not to mention he planned to do so much more. Guns don’t fire themselves. People on here spend too much time looking at their home videos and not enough of the cafeteria footage. The extent of how awful that shooting was seems to be lost on so many. He isn’t just some tiny, pissy nerdy kid, he was a deranged killer

I feel like we don’t really understand one another. Maybe that is due to the way I worded things before, or maybe it is because we seemingly do not see eye to eye on Eric himself whatsoever. Allow me to explain what I meant a second time with more depth than the other asks about it were given. (I still cannot quite believe that this was born out of a silly attempt of mine at making light of how easily annoyed the kid was, but there we go.. one apparently cannot joke irreverently about big bad scary Harris without getting someone up in their case about him, lol.)

All I said was “Eric Harris does not scare me”. That is the truth of the matter. If I were terrified of him, I would not be able to give him the open space I do. If he scared me on some level, I would not be able to write about him in a way that dimensionalises him. I would not be able to feel empathy toward him and be honest about him. I have always been the latter – I have never glossed over who he was, but I have attempted to speak of why he was the way he was. I do not owe him this courtesy, but I wish to extend it toward him all the same. I don’t feel any fear where he is concerned. Eric Harris, as a person, does not terrify me in the slightest.

His actions and his intended actions on the day of the massacre are terrifying when you consider them and very frightening for everyone who had the misfortune of being faced with them in varying degrees. The cafeteria footage does not bring the horror of his actions home in the slightest. Seeing that footage does very little (if anything) to help someone understand the dichotomy between the boys we see on the home video footage and the boys as killers. The things that shake me are things like having Val Schnurr’s screaming in my ears as I listen to that one clear snippet we have of the 911 call, the descriptions by witnesses that are so vivid they become like a small videoclip in my brain, and the statements made by the professionals who walked the scene in the wake of that terror. Believe me when I say that I am fully aware of how terrifying those actions were to everyone. It’s something that has kept me awake at night and something that has deeply shaken me at varying points during my research.

My awareness of and my sensing of the fear that was caused by his actions does not influence my own feelings and understanding toward Eric. They are two separate things entirely to me. He was more than just that one day of his life, though I naturally will use the word “killer” when speaking of his actions that day as that is what he factually was at the time. I refuse to speak of him as “deranged”, because I cannot look at his fear and his isolation and his anger and his wayward insecurity and call him deranged in good conscience at the same time. I cannot speak of him in definites that judge him. I will leave it to my readers and followers to determine if my refusal to do so is a good thing or not. I feel that it may allow me to extend that same non-judgmental attempt at understanding toward all who may feel like Eric felt, and provide a view of Eric that is not hindered by kneejerk claims about only one part of his character at the same time.

I seek to understand him, not demonise him. There is no place for fear of him in that.    

Looking at Eric with a gun in his hand on 4/20 would scare the hell outta you

Probably, but all the credits for causing fear do go to the gun in that particular scenario? It’s a no-brainer to feel fear when someone is armed with a gun and shooting people in your vicinity. Common sense really. Take the gun out of the equation and it gets a hell of a lot less frightening, so Eric on his own without the security blanket of Arlene really doesn’t do shit to terrify me.

I’ve said before, though, a long time back, that being confronted with either one of them daring to point a gun at me would likely piss me off before I would even realise I was scared at all. The indignance I would feel, the “how dare you think you have a right to decide over my life?”-notion of it.. fear and anger would run hand-in-hand inside of me at that point and I’m not so sure which one of the two would win out over the other.

Dude, all what Brooks needed to endup on Erics death list was to pick him up late. I doubt annoying Eric would be so much “fun”. More like…dangerous?

Brooks was perpetually late (not just once but aaaaall the time) and probably annoyed Eric with a hell of a lot more than just being late. I can see how Eric would totally not be having Brooks after being confronted with that time and time again, though putting him on the hitlist is a total testament to the extremity of Eric’s emotional spectrum rather than an appropriate response.

I would find it fun to poke at him until he snapped, and I do think he needed to learn the difference between good-natured attempts at annoying him and actual mean stuff that would fall under picking on him. I would never resort to the latter. And, yes, I’d probably skyrocket onto that hitlist of his. So did most of the rest of the world, though, and we all know he didn’t succeed at exploding all of that into oblivion. He’s like one of those yapping and snarling dogs whose bark is often a lot worse than their bite. Nothing about Eric scares me, so I would not immediately consider annoying him to be a dangerous pursuit.

I’m cracking up at the thought of traveling back in time for the purpose of annoying Eric at work. ‘Hmm, can you show me how thin your thin crust pizza is? What else comes on the meat lovers besides what’s listed? Is it extra to put pepperoni on a plain cheese pizza? Can you read the menu off for me, dear? I forgot my glasses.’

blood-of-innocents:

thedragonrampant:

Hahaha, you and me both! It’d be so worth it. He would probably start contemplating murder in earnest if I went “uh, so, like, I want the anchovies pizza but without any of those little fish on it because they’re suuupericky”, wouldn’t he? Or if I just flipped between drinks like “I want a coke, no hold on I want a lemonade, nope sorry let’s make it coke, uhh oh you have iced tea yay let’s go for that!” while ordering.

This kind of thing is the gift that keeps on giving, you know? Just imagine being the most annoying version of yourself around Eric and picture the face he’d be making at you, lol. You could probably see his eye twitch if you looked closely enough. A little levity amid the drama. ^^

Okay guys, leave my bb alone 😠 lol. You guys would give him a stroke with this stuff. He would be furious…Omg. @thedragonrampant

Hahaha, yes, he’d probably be superfurious. It’s probably not one of my brighter ideas, but it’d get some of that rage out and fact of the matter is that I would really love to have a shouting match with him at some point. My initial reaction to him back when I started researching consisted mainly of a whole lot of yelling and I’m sure that initial reaction would start right back up again if I ever laid eyes on him in reality. xD You know me, though, I’d be good to the dude overall and wouldn’t get supermean! 

I love with all these imagines, you can see the boys looking at us like “I’m so thankful you can’t go back….”

They should be very grateful that I have not figured out a way to go back in time, yup. *laughs* I think that it’s only fair after all the shit they pulled on people.. I’ve often expressed the desire to hug them and kick them in the shins at the same time. Bit of tough love never hurt anybody.

We would do have to think of ways to annoy Dylan cause you can just see Eric looking at us like “you’re really only going to pick on me?!” Hahaha P.s. Hahaha you can’t help but imagine all day, those 2 boys would be so fun to annoy!

I have a feeling like Dylan would be sooooo much harder to annoy, though. You could get Eric from zero to murder in the space of seconds, but Dylan? Dylan would just raise his eyebrow at you and shrug. It’d take forever to get him to a stage where you would see any kind of annoyance in him. Dylan was a lot more patient with people. It secretly makes Eric the more fun one to annoy, let’s be honest, and the dude did invite such idiocies by being so highstrung all the time. Gift that keeps on giving and all that. 😉 But fair’s fair, and I’m all for annoying Dylan too!

I just learned about the military discount and well, I was wondering if Eric had one too since his dad was military.

I didn’t know that was a thing! We don’t have this in my country at all, so I’m not too certain on the ins and outs of it. From what I can currently tell, it seems to extend to both the person working in or having worked in the military as well as their direct family. I’m sure that the Harris family got some discounts through that. I’m also sure that, for the discount to work, the military person needs to be present at the time.. so I don’t think Eric could wrangle one all by himself, just in the presence of dad.

That would be hilarious! As you flip between drinks, wait for him to grab a cup and start filing it up then switch to a different drink! Hahaha you could just see him want to crumple the cup in his hand!

That was definitely a part of that plan, haha. He’d be left with the desire to attempt to drown me in one of those cups, let’s be fair. (I could also just imagine Dylan cracking up real quietly in the back during that scenario.)

*shifty eyes* I swear I’m not just spending my days imagining shit like this haha..

I’m sorry for that long Text. I just have no one i can talk to about this. I feel like people Couldn’t believe me. They dont want to hear the painful truth. Thank you for taking Your time and reading My story. What i wrote wasnt all, theres more stuff but I think that’s quiet enough. In those almost 20 years i exist, i rearly got to feel ‘love’ i only felt it with my turtle, my music and my plushies. Thank you. For reading this. And again, i love Your blog :)

Don’t be sorry for it, please! I think I missed the first part of the message (Tumblr probably ate it) but I got the rest of it just fine. My blog’s a public setting, though, so I’ve chosen to only put this last part of yours out there.. I really do wish to reply and let you know I’ve heard it, but I’m not sure how comfortable you are with putting your personal stuff out there for all my followers to read. I’m willing to speak with you off anon any time you want, too, and you can use the IM system for a chat if you feel like it.. ^^

I do believe what you wrote to me. Truth isn’t always sunshine and daisies, no matter how much we may wish nothing but good things onto a person, and your experiences have been pretty painful from what I can see. I would want to say that now is not the time to try and live up to goals like finding a job that other people set for you. Make your goals small. Goal number one can be as small as “get out of bed in the morning”, or “wash my face", or “brush my hair”, or “go outside for five minutes”. You are not a failure if you don’t get that goal done, but it’ll be awesome if you do get it done and you should take the time to congratulate yourself on that if you succeed at it. Sometimes, survival is about nothing but those baby steps. It’s about telling yourself you can get through the next ten seconds without bursting into tears, or about telling yourself that you can drink a cup of tea in the next five minutes without letting your hands shake. Make the timeframe small and make the goal small. Once that goes well, make the timeframe bigger and make the goal a little larger. It’s okay if it doesn’t always go well. Everyone’s got their off days and in the beginning it’s gonna feel like you’ve got nothing but off. 😉 But I know you can do it, and I know it will be a yay-moment if you get it done without worrying about how you’re gonna get it done.

Love from pets like your turtle is always unconditional and worth treasuring. They can be our friends and drag us through the tough times with their affection. They also make us feel needed: who else is going to take care of them? Losing one is a grief that can shake us up terribly. Is there any way you might be able to get a new pet? It might help a lot – I got my dog around the time I was doing very poorly and having her around was so good for me. It feels like your family environment isn’t very constructive in making you feel needed, and I find what you shared about them concerning.. I think that it may be good to set a vague goal of getting out of there and take all the baby steps you need toward making that happen. Are you still pursuing education? I realise that this can be hard given our crap experiences in school, but it might help you in pursuit of other goals like a job. It doesn’t always have to be years of it, either.. how about a small course that takes a few months? Just think about it. You’ve got so much time left to figure out what it is that really speaks to you as something you’d like to do. =) There’s no rush in any of it. Go with what feels right in that department.

May is a little while away. And before that month hits, I would like you to consider doing something.. speak to someone just like you’re doing to me now. What difference is a conversation going to make in the grand scheme of things? You don’t have to speak with someone who already knows you – hey, just look at how well you’re doing with me! – but a listening and non-judgmental ear can really be a lot of good. Give yourself the space of those few months. If you don’t feel comfortable speaking with someone in your direct environment, how about speaking with your doctor or with someone else? They might be able to make a difference for you. I think that it could help to get help. What have you got to lose? Nothing but your life, as far as I have seen, and I would very much like you to stay alive and well. =)

One of the only reasons you would go back in time is to annoy Eric? Haha it be friends with them? Or prevent it?

Hey, nobody ever said I have a sense of self-preservation.. *laughs* It’s indeed one of the only reasons why I’d go back in time, but my annoying him would probably stretch beyond being his world’s worst customer at a pizza place. (I don’t even like pizza all that much so there’d be trouble no matter what, lol.) Let’s face it, I would probably do something momentously stupid like make a serious attempt at abducting him and driving him cross-country in an effort to get him away from Littleton altogether. Somebody else would need to tackle Dylan, I ain’t game for that, but I could handle a tiny pissy Rebby no problem if necessary.

If I was ten years younger than I am, I might put in the effort to form a friendship and join them in school. Nobody’s gonna believe a 27-year-old pretending to be a teenager, though, so I’d firmly stick with my original plan of abduction and annoyance instead. 😉 Going back in time and having to watch it all play out exactly as we know it did would be okay for a while (hasn’t anyone else got the desire to just observe them doing their day-to-day things?) but in the end I think the need to try and interfere would be greater than the good ol’ “you can’t meddle with timelines”-idea. Which is probably why it’s for the best that I don’t have a TARDIS. =D

I’m cracking up at the thought of traveling back in time for the purpose of annoying Eric at work. ‘Hmm, can you show me how thin your thin crust pizza is? What else comes on the meat lovers besides what’s listed? Is it extra to put pepperoni on a plain cheese pizza? Can you read the menu off for me, dear? I forgot my glasses.’

Hahaha, you and me both! It’d be so worth it. He would probably start contemplating murder in earnest if I went “uh, so, like, I want the anchovies pizza but without any of those little fish on it because they’re suuupericky”, wouldn’t he? Or if I just flipped between drinks like “I want a coke, no hold on I want a lemonade, nope sorry let’s make it coke, uhh oh you have iced tea yay let’s go for that!” while ordering.

This kind of thing is the gift that keeps on giving, you know? Just imagine being the most annoying version of yourself around Eric and picture the face he’d be making at you, lol. You could probably see his eye twitch if you looked closely enough. A little levity amid the drama. ^^

At 19, I read a sentence that re-terraformed my head: “The level of matter in the universe has been constant since the Big Bang.”
In all the aeons we have lost nothing, we have gained nothing – not a speck, not a grain, not a breath. The universe is simply a sealed, twisting kaleidoscope that has reordered itself a trillion trillion trillion times over.
Each baby, then, is a unique collision – a cocktail, a remix – of all that has come before: made from molecules of Napoleon and stardust and comets and whale tooth; colloidal mercury and Cleopatra’s breath: and with the same darkness that is between the stars between, and inside, our own atoms.
When you know this, you suddenly see the crowded top deck of the bus, in the rain, as a miracle: this collection of people is by way of a starburst constellation. Families are bright, irregular-shaped nebulae. Finding a person you love is like galaxies colliding. We are all peculiar, unrepeatable, perambulating micro-universes – we have never been before and we will never be again. Oh God, the sheer exuberant, unlikely face of our existences. The honour of being alive. They will never be able to make you again. Don’t you dare waste a second of it thinking something better will happen when it ends. Don’t you dare

Caitlin Moran (via falltospring)

THSI LITERALLY MAKES LIFE WORTH EVERYTHING

(via ov-ergrown)

Your theories make me think a lot and you always provide evidence, you seem like a very intellectual and kind person, which is quite rare. I always check your blog because it’s amazing – your answers are lengthy and very informational. You’re basically my favourite blog, have a nice day!

Thank you!! I certainly do my best to provide accurate and interesting information, so it’s really nice to hear how appreciated this is. Thought-provoking theories are basically one of my favourite things on the planet so I’m really just shouting at you all how cool/interesting it all is, haha. ^^ I didn’t know intellectual and kind is such a rare combination – it should be one I think people should aspire to be, so it’s really awesome to hear that I come across that way. =)

Ahh man, lovely messages like these make my day! ❤

I look up to you

Awh, that’s really nice (and kinda daunting)! ^^ How come? I don’t really see that much worth looking up in myself, haha.

Do you think that in the end Dylan considered Eric his best friend? I know Dylan wrote somewhere that Eric was his “good friend”. It breaks my heart knowing that there might not have been a single person in the world who considered Eric a best friend, during his teenage years at least.

No, I do not think that Dylan ever considered Eric to be his best friend. His own admission of Eric being a “good friend” already is a bit of a giveaway, as I think that Dylan would have no problems using the word “best” if Eric really was the best. I always have the impression that Zach Heckler was the one deserving of the “best”-notion where Dylan was concerned, as his conversations with Zach often were deeply private and they understood each other very well.

The more I read Sue’s book, too, the more I think that Dylan did not consider Eric to be his best friend. There are some tidbits in that book that show Dylan’s quiet resistance against overbearing shouty Reb, really, and I now consider it an option that Eric was not wholly oblivious to that either. I think that Eric considered Dylan to be his best friend for sure, though, which makes it such a heartwrenching thing.. I realise that Eric poisoned a lot of his friendships all by himself and is partially responsible for his own friendship misery, but he obviously considered Dylan to be one of the better people in his life and seeing that Dylan likely did not consider Eric to be the same just pains me.

I would have loved to have been a customer on the other line of Eric. Oh my.

Hah, you and me both. And then be one of those phone customers who really have no clue what they even want to order – the first thing out of my mouth would be “I kinda want a pizza” and you would practically hear him go “no duh”. xD Or just show up at the counter and take for-fuckin’-ever to order or complain about having to pay 25 cents extra for something, I think that’d piss him off real quick too.

But, hey, he’d have to be polite so there’d be murder in his eyes and a “yes ma’am” leaving that mouth. So entertaining! (I think just about one of the only reasons why I would consider going back in time would be to annoy him incessantly, haha. What does that say about me?)

I’ve heard many things about what dylan said during the shooting when the girl was saying “oh god oh god please help me” like him saying god is gay, him saying he is god etc. so I was just wondering by any chance, do you know if any of those are true from a legitimate source?

The only legitimate source for any of the statements made in the library are, of course, the testimonies of library survivors. Some of them did not hear enough of the exchange Valeen Schnurr had with the boys to be able to identify anything that was said, but there were quite a few people around Val at the time and she was able to give her own testimony too. (Her recollection is quite sound, given the fact that doctors believe that she had suffered anywhere between nine and fifteen gunshot wounds at the time and her verbal exchange took place after she sustained those!)

Evan Todd is the only one who mentions the “God is gay” comment and embellished his story further by adding the “go with God and you’ll be saved” as the reply to that. He’s not a very reliable witness and identified Val as Cassie Bernall simply because he’d heard the faulty news report on the “she said yes”-story prior to officers speaking with him. His account:

Diwata Perez, who was near Val at the time, has a more nuanced account:

Interestingly, Jeanna Park believes it was not Dylan speaking with Val. She knew his voice from having shared a class with him, so she was quite certain it wasn’t him. That would lead to the exchange having been Eric’s, which is possible given also Diwata’s “maybe” about it having been Eric asking Val this.

Val herself, though, has the most detailed account. She puts Eric and Dylan virtually side-by-side here, too, so it’s my impression that her exchange could have been with either one of them. Look at these Xs she drew as an illustration to her account of their respective positions. (She was near and under table 2.)

Basically, we know the following things were said in one way or another for certain as multiple witnesses (including Val herself) confirm these:

“Do you believe in God?”

“No. Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because my parents taught me and I believe.”

Do you think if Eric and Dylan were in prison, rather than dead, that they would be remorseful?

Do you think Eric & Dylan would be remorseful if they didn’t die, and were serving life sentences?

Genuine remorse is, well, a complicated thing. I assume that we’re working off the premise here that one (Dylan) would not kill himself in custody and that the other (Eric) would not receive a death sentence that would remove him from life early. Prison’s a hardened place to be in. There doesn’t seem to be a lot of space for remorse within those walls, though I’m certain that it breathes a life of its own in the relative quiet of night and isolation. I think that young guys like Eric and Dylan would be prone to either posturing to make themselves seem tougher or crumbling altogether. The latter does not make anyone last long, but the former makes people detach from such ideas as guilt and remorse very easily because they don’t fit that pattern of being tough.

For them to express such a thing, they would need to come to the realisation that their violence and their hatred was deeply hurtful and be able to empathise with their victims and their families for putting them through that hell. That’s a process that takes years. Sometimes, it takes most of someone’s life to be able to express regret/remorse for something they did that they felt really strongly about being in the right about at the time. I don’t discount the possibility that they could come to feel it, as they were both incredibly sensitive and capable of knowing their right from wrong, but I think a prison environment would not necessarily be the most constructive in terms of allowing them to access that part of themselves.

The thought occured to me recently that at some point on April 20th this year, Dylan will have been dead longer than he was alive. I don’t really have a question but, the thought of that just breaks my heart and I needed to share it with someone who would understand.

The first thing to come to my head, in all its candid honesty, is “jeez I’m getting old”. 😉 I remember Columbine from when it first happened.. how the hell did we end up sitting here talking about it 17 years later? It’s heartbreaking to realise this kind of thing especially when you contemplate how much has happened in these years that Dylan and the others missed out on. There are these big events like 9/11 and the subsequent warfare/terrorism, but also these smaller things like the rise of technology and all the cool movies and stuff.. and it just makes you wish they were still alive to see it. (Or that they had lived to complain about it, of course!)