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Cliché on a Halloween Night

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This Hallow Eve, we met our players: David, Angela, and Spencer. But forgive me if we focus more on Angela, as both David and Spencer are dead, which would make a far more boring story.   They hung from the second-tallest tree in the forest, just at the edge. Angela had spent hours finding the right tree; most of them were either too in the open or had Halloween ornaments hanging from them, garish neon things, most of them and the rest plastic crap. She had to pre-kill them; it would've been too difficult to restrain them herself and hang them naturally. She did prefer her work to be authentic, but some sacrifices had to be made, clearly. She didn't know David or Spencer personally—far from it. She had seen them on the bus three Tuesdays earlier. They had distinct silhouettes, which was exactly what she was looking for. She killed them while they were out trick-or-treating. Her plan was to get them changed out of the costumes, but she realised it would fit her theme more if t...
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Heathers is a good film.

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Heathers is Mean Girls if they drew blood. It has become a cult classic and is still wildly popular today, as proved by the award-winning Heathers: The Musical, first seen on Broadway and coming back to Broadway this year. Its job as a high school comedy seems clear: do The Breakfast Club, but different. But I believe Heathers would hate The Breakfast Club. The Breakfast Club is defined by performative angst, laughing off sexual assault, and commercialised anti-commercialism. As a socialist, queer high schooler living through an unprecedented mental health epidemic and a global rise of fascism (and late-stage capitalism), I have a specific focus on how Heathers discusses politics and mental health. I believe that Heathers represents itself as the perfect microcosm of these concepts. “We students of Westerburg High will die. Today our burning bodies will be the ultimate protest to a society that degrades us. Fuck you all.” I believe this note is a perfect way to look at the film...
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The war on drugs worked - For the wrong people

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The war on drugs has long been seen as a failure. The goal was to stop the rise of drugs by targeting potential users at a young age. While it had potential, they fumbled at every level, most embarrassingly the First Lady's catchphrase “just say no”, which criminally oversimplifies the problem, treating drug abuse as a simple moral failing. But despite that, I believe the war on drugs worked… but not for whom you think. This is a story about a failing of government policy, corporate greed, and the middlemen of murder. Failing of Government Policy The war on drugs is unique for one main reason: it puts the responsibility on the users and, by extension, the blame. This would be like if the war on terror was targeted at trade centres that should say no to planes. Not only that, but their focus on cannabis, a drug we now know is not nearly as harmful as was claimed, was still placed on par with crack cocaine and carried with it the same prison sentence. The war on drugs was extremely h...
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Indirect discrimination and gay rights in America (non fiction opinion piece)

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  Queer rights are on the agenda for the current federal government, and the plan seems to be to go backwards. Recent executive actions have revoked all federal DEI policies. The government forced everyone to list their gender as their sex on all official documents. They attempted to make it impossible to access affirming care under the age of 18. They have replaced the modern (and correct) acronym “LGBTQIA+” with “LGB,” deliberately and coldly excluding a huge portion of the community. Even the Stonewall website has erased the trans community. All of which is extremely reminiscent of the lavender scare of the 1950s as they tried to remove gay men from government positions. Not to mention how the local state government has continued to fight back against basic equality with moves like book bans and "Don't Say Gay" bills. I have concerns about how the queer community and the left as a whole is thinking about discrimination and existential threats to human rights. To look a...
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True Crime obsessed (short story)

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  “Yay! I have jury duty!” She rushed in to tell her roommates. They both groaned simultaneously. “Haley, you know you can throw that out, right? There's no way they can prove you got it.” “Yeah, Haley!” Simon chimed in. He seemed in a better mood than usual, which was a bit like being the tallest dwarf, but it was nice to see him a bit more put together than usual. “You said you would help me with my paper!?” Simon exclaimed with that magical mix of not caring about his work and being constantly stressed out about it. “I’m sorry, I’ll help you on Wednesday, but this is an opportunity I can't pass up,” Haley said, her palpable excitement still coursing through her. “You're such a true crime nerd, Haley,” Sarah said with a sly smile that she usually saved for Simon's crappy jokes. “I just can't help myself,” Haley said as she plopped herself onto the couch with the rest of them with a dramatic thud. “The betrayal, the deceit, the raw emotion,” she said, acting like s...
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