Those Unheard

Friday, May 25th, 2007: anyone else catch this???? kEePeRoFtHeTrUeBeLiEf OMG SO i just realized. revengeance = REVENGE + VENGEANCE. just MORE proof that Xander is a genius!!!! (as if we needed it) * OBM 5.18.07 * SECOND *bestnightofmylife SO<3 5.24 ~*nevergotobedangry~* (toHELLandBACKagain) thank you mom<3 for everything<3iloveyou * Hannah - well done here. clear argument, strong reasons, good use of a quote. best of luck in high school & keep reading! 4+/4 * "These cookies?  Storebought! " * a pilgrim, disappointed wooden owl on a shelf when there’s no writing on the walls you’ve got to scratch it in yourself - “Bullet Train to Siberia” * “That’s the real reason I came back from New York. Everyone there’s so full of shit, so fake, so hypocritical. Don’t waste your time with the shiny lights and fame, kids. Don’t listen to what other people tell you. Think for yourselves." That’...

Some movements thrive when they lose a leader and gain a symbol, a spiritual foreparent, an infallible Founder, so that future historians are a always little bit surprised by how brief a time that key figure was actually around, as if his or her tenure was just a prologue to the actual story, which causes them to reflect on long shadows and Ideas superseding Reality and such. UNBAN was not one of them. Losing its head, it turned out to be less Hydra than run-of-the-mill chicken. Sure, they could have re-rallied around hELLrAISER as a martyr, but they already had two martyrs, and since hELLrAISER hadn’t been literally, gun-to-your-head banned it would require another name change, and plus it was getting late on the East Coast and most of them had school in the morning. The OMB Squad, though, kept fighting valiantly: they added a new question to their FAQ, addressing the use of the Report to Mods button (“While we believe in the Report function in theory, we cannot fully support i...

xx themachine: you know was thinking about earlier? xx themachine: this is totally random but xx themachine: kinda not at the same time XXxSuicidesXGraceXXx: okay….. xx themachine: alright so a few weeks ago xx themachine: i was at this lame flea market thing XXxSuicidesXGraceXXx: with your family? xx themachine: yeah it was like a xx themachine: ~*family outing*~ xx themachine: and there was this sign there xx themachine: that said like xx themachine: Never Go To Bed Angry XXxSuicidesXGraceXXx: ………. XXxSuicidesXGraceXXx: that’s so fucking dumb xx themachine: OK THANK YOU xx themachine: i was hoping youd say that xx themachine: kinda like a test XXxSuicidesXGraceXXx: going to bed angry is fun xx themachine: yeah and like xx themachine: thats just gonna make people xx themachine: PRETEND to not be angry xx themachine: which is so much worse xx themachine: it’s like what you said about facing your problems xx themachine: vs running away from...

As hELLrAISER’s posts started to become less frequent and less revolutionary, the members of UNBAN started to wonder if she had been silenced by the mods. One of her last posts before she disappeared (or was disappeared ) entirely was a full-throated assertion that the mods had not censured her, censored her, or contacted her in any way. But since if the mods were controlling her speech they would also be controlling her saying she wasn't being controlled, this didn't convince anybody.  And the timing was awfully suspicious, coming as it did in the wake of the second ARW. After the OMB Squad declared that they believed in bans, not blocks, the UNBAN movement (still under the direction of hELLrAISER) had responded by advocating blocks as a solution. This was what the mods had originally advocated, but after it became part of UNBAN’s platform, they couldn’t be seen agreeing with the enemy. So they posted a second Annoncement/Reminder/Warning, to the effect that it was not a ...

xx themachine: what did you mean before XXxSuicidesXGraceXXx: when? xx themachine: when you said i was just as bad as victoria XXxSuicidesXGraceXXx: nothing XXxSuicidesXGraceXXx: i was just being mean tbh xx themachine: no i mean like xx themachine: the victoria part xx themachine: are you guys fighting? XXxSuicidesXGraceXXx: no we’re not fighting XXxSuicidesXGraceXXx: she’s just XXxSuicidesXGraceXXx: i mean YOU know xx themachine: yeah i know XXxSuicidesXGraceXXx: like we’re still friends XXxSuicidesXGraceXXx: but idk if we can be BEST friends anymore XXxSuicidesXGraceXXx: not after NY xx themachine: you know xx themachine: i have a theory about her XXxSuicidesXGraceXXx: oh yeah? XXxSuicidesXGraceXXx: wait XXxSuicidesXGraceXXx: i think i know what you’re gonna say XXxSuicidesXGraceXXx: and yeah i've thought it too xx themachine: really??! XXxSuicidesXGraceXXx: but i don’t think so xx themachine: no? XXxSuicidesXGraceXXx: yeah XX...

That evening, Bobby Melrose was lying on that same hotel bed, obsessively watching news coverage of himself. As soon as one channel started talking about something else - the war, the weather - he would flip to another, and they would just be starting their coverage. For any lulls, he still had the comments of Cicero’s article to peruse, pre-loaded on his Blackberry. The magic from the morning hadn’t faded yet. Everything was still lining up perfectly. Bobby gloated; he basked. He had earned this. For all his talk of money, this was his real payment, this moment of perfect satisfaction. Somehow he had solved the puzzle - the most complex of his career - but he had done it. He had maneuvered all the pieces into place, and now it was running on its own. Like a machine, like the watch of a Deist god. The TV-watching public was learning to hate him for what he had done to Britttni, the internet-browsing public for what he had done to Xander, and most importantly, somewhere, Xander was...

xx themachine: my sister thinks smiling is mind control xXXSuicidesXGraceXXx: lmao what? xx themachine: idk thats what she was just saying xx themachine: like she was talking abt some assembly xx themachine: where they taught them abt like xx themachine: ~*positive thinking*~ xx themachine: and how smiling makes you happy xx themachine: and called it mind control xx themachine: is that even true btw xXXSuicidesXGraceXXx: i think so xXXSuicidesXGraceXXx: idk xx themachine: like i remember learning abt it too xx themachine: but i wonder if its like one of those xx themachine: taste bud map kinda things xx themachine: where we just pretend it works xXXSuicidesXGraceXXx: oh idk maybe xx themachine: everything ok? xXXSuicidesXGraceXXx: yeah sorry xXXSuicidesXGraceXXx: just got a bunch of stuff going on rn xx themachine: oh okay xx themachine: is it like xx themachine: mom stuff? xXXSuicidesXGraceXXx: lmao no shes not home xx themachine: so what...

Banned. That’s what she had gotten for her efforts: banned. Susan repeated the word with morbid fascination. She  had expected to come back (after dinner, after dishes) to a few interested comments and questions, some evidence that she had  moved some minds, prodded them along the great conveyor belt of understanding. Maybe some hostility or misinterpretation such as Freud (the subject of last night's documentary) faced -  before he was Freud, before he could pull off "sometimes a cigar is just a cigar" and had to spend all his time saying it wasn't.  She would have even accepted a touch of light censorship. Deleted posts didn't faze her. But not an outright   ban . What could be a clearer sign that it was time to drop this whole little charade, to establish this in her personal history as a singular, unique experience, with clear start and end dates, something to look back on wistfully, to marvel at, to speculate about. (“When was that, again? Well, it w...

After the mods’ latest announcement/reminder/warning, the members of the group formerly known as BDF held a conclave to decide on their new name. They met on the old Hallowed Eve board, which had become a ghost town, since nobody discussed the old music anymore (or they did, but on the new boards, which was kind of the whole problem, wasn’t it?) The first candidate put forth was UNBAN OMB, but this was quickly shot down as being too similar to UNBAN, their mortal enemies (although they were now fighting for at least fifty-percent the same thing; D_____ was gradually slipping away.) A few uninspired attempts later, a user came up with OMB SQUAD, and this was approved unanimously, even by those who wouldn’t get the pun for a few days, just because they liked the military and/or marching band connotations. OBM SQUAD FAQ What do we stand for? We believe that an organized board is a happier board. We believe that TXers belong with other TXers, TBers with other TBers, BSKEPS wi...

“Hannah?” Victoria said, hesitating on the porch. The duplex door was unlocked, as always, but suddenly this familiar house filled her with anxiety, making her think of horror movies as she turned the knob, pushed in gently, patted her sweatshirt pocket again, checking for Hannah’s phone. “Hannah?” she tried again, crossing the threshold, her voice faint. Instead, she got Benji, a bundle of energy from being cooped up in the house all this time. He ran up to Victoria, barked a greeting, smelled her, circled her, let himself be pet, and cheered her up: she did belong here. Benji knew her. “Hannah?” a third time, but this time it was an announcement: here I am, Victoria, your best friend, someone you know so well she doesn’t need to say who she is. “I'm in here,” Hannah said from her bedroom - a weird, cramped room attached to the kitchen like the sidecar of a motorcycle, mattress on the floor, no windows, no overhead light, but it fit her. Benji careened back and forth ...

“ . . . has been accused of misconduct by his client, Britttni. The pop star alleges that the producer has misled, mistreated, and manipulated her throughout their professional relationship, and is seeking . . .” Mrs. Brixton made a guttural sound, both disgusted and disgusting, as she passed through the living room. “Men. Typical.” “Hey, mom?” said Victoria from her contorted position on the couch, head hanging off the seat cushion, now that the seal of silence was broken. “Don’t ever let some man tell you what to do, Victoria,” she said in response, having abandoned the idea of writing her Last Word after it turned out that Feminism was no easier to capture than Rationality. Instead, she would treat every utterance as though it was her last word, and eventually she would be right. Besides, true rationality meant recognizing that her daughters were largely  irrational and more likely to remember her by some offhand remark rather than a systematic summation of her thin...