Problem: Depicting Villains Whose Villainy Lies In Having Extreme And Unreasonable Reactions To Objectively

I hit my girlfriend today… wow I feel like crap. I guess I’m gonna get picked up by the cops tomorrow, so I figured I would tell you what happened. We were having an argument and she went too far. She made a comment along the lines of “your loser father couldn’t keep a relationship together, and neither can you!” When I was around 9, my parents got divorced and fought for custody. My dad wanted me and my brother because he genuinely loved us. My mom wanted us just to spite my dad. She won, and my dad kinda lost it over the years.

This was too far for me. I had never, EVER hit a girl before, but it happened so fast I didn’t even know I did it.

Basically, I cocked my fist back, and flew it straight into her nose. I thought it would be like the movies where she would get a little trickle of blood. It wasn’t. Her nose EXPLODED. I think I must of broken a bunch of cartilage or something because blood shot out of both her nostrils, got all over me, and all over the floor. She staggered backwards, hit her head hard enough on the wall to leave a dent, then slumped down.

We were both stunned for about 10 seconds before she started crying hysterically and ran into my room and locked the door. So I went to wash my hands, and while I was in the bathroom, I heard her run out of the house, and take off in her car. That was about 6 hours ago so I guess she didn’t go to the cops or anything. So later I went home, and broke down in tears… My mom came into my room and when she heard about the story she got scared and said you’re moving with you’re auntie and uncle in Bel-Air. I whistled for a cab and when it came near the license plate said fresh and had a dice in the mirror. If anything I can say this cab is rare but I thought “Now forget it, Yo homes to Bel-Air!“

Your analog horror about the all consuming flesh and the sinister broadcast altering entities is not gay enough and i am not fucking joking

fanart for foreigner by cj cherryh

Tintin remembers what comes after 15.

Russian exorcisms be like

Death of a Salesman happens like every day to upper crust Americans but instead of poetic suicides they just join Qanon.

I wonder: Do Americans know about american school buses? Not their existence in general, but how they're seen overseas.

Over here, they're one of the symbols of America, on par with the Statue of Liberty, the flag, the Eagle, and well ahead of any chain restaurant you can name. People won't know any US states, but they will know these vehicles.

The thing is, here in Germany, we don't have dedicated school buses. The general idea is that kids go to school on their own. When that's not practical, they're expected to use (and given free tickets for) public transit. Public transit is designed around this requirement; there are many places where there is a bus, and anyone can get on it, but the route and timetable really only makes sense for school children. In case a dedicated school bus is really needed, that's generally subcontracted out, and the lines either use something like a Sprinter Van for smaller routes, or a normal city or interurban bus (often a used one that's a bit older). School trips are normal public transit, or a rented bus, typically a coach or regional bus.

It's not a perfect system, in the past couple of years there's been an epidemic of people bringing their kids to school in their cars instead of letting them walk, which is less than ideal. It is what it is. But building a dedicated network of public transit lines only for students, and building dedicated vehicles only for that, has never occurred to anyone here.

Of course we know about these buses, from movies and such, but they're as foreign here as cacti or pick-up trucks (actually we're seeing more and more of these here) or yellow cabs (all europeans will assume all cabs in the US are yellow until they actually visit).

You do see these buses here at times, because people still generally like the idea of the US, even if they have a lot of issues with a lot of details, and so folks bring them over, along with stretch limos and stuff (also not really a thing here). And of course, if someone goes to all that trouble, they don't do it to haul school kids, they rent it out for city tours or as a party bus or whatever.

So you see these yellow things as a symbol of faraway places, scenic vistas, some vague undefined idea of freedom that doesn't necessarily hold up to any contact with reality, and it's just a huge part of the whole US aesthetic.

And then you go to a student exchange with the US, and you finally get the chance: You yourself get to ride in one of these iconic chrome yellow buses! It looks just like in the movies! You get in, you drive in them a little…

…and you realise they're shit. Just the worst buses in the western world. Terrible suspension. Uncomfortable seats with weirdly high backs (so they don't have to put seatbelts in, they just restrict how far kids can fly in an accident). Everything made out of the cheapest materials. Turns out the reason why the US uses school buses like that instead of normal modern city buses, which the US has, is to save money and because they just hate kids.

And then it hits you why US Americans say "as American as apple pie", a dish that is made and enjoyed literally anywhere in the world, instead of "as American as yellow school buses". Of course the Americans already knew all this. They got tortured by these things forever. It would never occur to them to see this as a symbol of America, it's just a normal part of life for them. It's a symbol of school and school life and sometimes normalcy, and tells us that these actors getting out of it are supposed to be teenagers, nothing more.

But most people in Europe have, of course, never ridden on these buses. So when they see them in movies and TV, that's a giant big yellow signifier that we're not in Hessen or Wallonia or wherever anymore. A symbol of a different world, one that may be at most a once-in-a-lifetime-experience for most people, just like a picture of a tropical beach, Mayan Pyramids, the Great Wall of China, or Hildesheim (there's no reason to go there twice). And I think Americans don't know that, and that's fascinating.

why do things aimed at “gamers” look like that