Torn Between

So recently I bought a ton of stuff from Jamey Jasta of Hatebreed on Depop including a bunch of old CTHC tapes, some from bands I've never heard of. One of these bands is called Torn Between. The tape I have sounds kind of post-hardcore oriented with some nu metal elements. Not a fan personally, but I'm still very interested in this band. There is very little info on them and the few nuggets I was able to find were in YouTube video descriptions and comments. There are some videos that seem like they were taken later in the band's run since they have a DJ and a somewhat more refined sound. Since I fancy myself a bit of a CTHC historian, I figured I would put the info I found here for posterity.

From MorseCodePro on YouTube:

TORN BETWEEN - Birth - Hanover House video description:

there was six versions of this band this was one of the 3rd to last.. after this show we kicked the singer out and had two more singers that were more death metal / Hardcore some dude BIG RED that pierced at Turnpike tattoo on the Berlin trpk  that was SxE and some other dude that goes by the name of BiG E and smokes mad blunts.. friends divided, drummer quit, the band faded away and members are shattered all over the country.  This version of the band had the least drug addicts.. glad some of the many members of this band are clean now..  some might be dead

This band  was around from the mid 90's to early 2000's from Meriden, CT

Comment by kimgow7671:

I have tapes, I was almost married to bass player and he is still my bff to this day!! Ego killed this band, Shane's did actually! I love you Shane,you know that I do..... as nd respect you but you let yourself go and I tried having you on my new bands track That I wrote called "Degraded Me" and you didn't make it fire,that growl in Birth is the best growl I ever heard
 I loved when you moved outta your Moms to Queens bc your chick was punching you. But, we all got hit with the O.C. 80's and you in David's words looked like a rotten tomato,  my manager wldnt let you do the part in the song I wrote for is to sing together but he said "you can do the same growls, so tell him no ty!!". I was so upset bc I knew that w/o your voice Torn Between was done and your ego was so blown up that you cldnt even see the ground. I also remember when you hit rock bottom.  You will all eays be a part of the CTHC family an I wld love to know......... we both cld of taken our bands so f n far. Mine, were jealous bc I was getting all the attention but its bc I was a female!! I had a shaved head and I was like "I am a woman hear me growl!!! Unfortunately my pu$$y ass bandmate cldnt spell out something at a awards show, and blamed me
 I was sick off being blamed!! So went on to work behind the scenes and teach my children everything!! God bless Torn Between  an Under Level!!❤🇱🇷💞

Comment on TORN BETWEEN - Rivers End - Hanover House by SammyGirl888:

 Do you have any of the demo music. I had 2.cassettes that I loved... 

That's all I can find. If it weren't for the many videos posted by MorseCodePro, I would have absolutely zero information on this band. Another cassette I got from Jasta was from a band called Bloodwork and I loved it, but I can't find anything about them online. I'm going to have to ask some of the oldheads in person if they can shed any light on Bloodwork and maybe Torn Between as well.

Odd Post-Birthday Concert Happenings

So two days ago, I turned 26. And yesterday I went to see my friends in Anxious play a show in New Haven while they were on tour with pop-punk giants The Wonder Years, who were celebrating the 10 year anniversary of their album The Greatest Generation. There was one bizarrely relevant incident for every band that played and I feel like I have to write about it just to document how weird it was. A band called Action Adventure kicked things off. During their set, their vocalist made a remark about stretching before moshing and followed it up by saying that he "wasn't 26 anymore". I smirked and thought it was funny. Next, a band called Sweet Pill took the stage. According to their guitarist, the band's vocalist also had her birthday the day before and since they didn't play a show then, he had the whole venue wish her a happy birthday. I stood there and thought "yo, birthday twin!" and had another laugh. When Anxious played next, they closed with Growing Up Song, which I knew would probably be the case because they always finish with that song but even still it felt more relevant than usual for me. Lastly, The Wonder Years came on and started playing The Greatest Generation, but the second track on that album is literally about being 26 and feeling like you've fallen behind in life. I had no idea this was the case and I was dumbstruck at the coincidence. If nothing else, I'm comforted that I'm in a better spot than many others were at my age, such as The Wonder Years guy. That's all I have for now, I just wanted to get all of this weirdness out of my head and on a page.

Post-Christmas CD Haul

 So in the immediate aftermath of Christmas, I received a large amount of CDs. Most of these came from 641distro, who had a massive 60% off everything sale for the holiday season. I also got a few CDs through orders on Discogs in addition to picking a couple up at a recent trip to Redscroll Records in Wallingford. Since it had been a while since I had a fat stack of CDs to go through, I figured I would make another big haul post going over what I got and quickly reviewing every release.

Held Under - The Catastrophe of Creation

 

Okay, so I saw this on the 641distro site and couldn't find any info on the band or any of their songs. Judging by what I was able to find, I knew it would be metalcore and figured it would be either shitty scene-core or maybe semi-decent Myspace deathcore since it came out in 2006. but I couldn't find a review or a sample anywhere, not even on YouTube. I was so curious I ended up picking up this CD to hear for myself. It ended up only being a couple bucks due to the sale so I figured it was worth it. The Catastrophe of Creation is a very interesting metalcore/deathcore release. It's basically mid noughties metalcore with strong elements of deathcore and traditional heavy metal/power metal influenced clean vocals. I was surprised at how unique it sounded compared to what was coming out at the time. It's not going to blow anyone away, but it was solid enough to keep me engaged through the 55 minute run time. A neat little barely known release I happened to stumble upon by chance.

Ancestor - Koalacaust

 

This EP was a free bonus from 641 that I assume was thrown in due to the volume of my order. Koalacaust is the first EP from Pennsylvania mathcore/deathcore group Ancestor, released in 2008. It's a pretty solid release that lines up with what you would expect from a technical core band from this era with crazy tempo changes, hard breakdowns, distorted deathcore vocals, and tongue in cheek song titles. There is definitely a strong influence from The Dillinger Escape Plan that can plainly be heard throughout the EP, but the overall sound is much more Myspace-core than DEP. Again, nothing remarkable, but a rock solid release mathcore connoisseurs should definitely check it out.

Upheaval - Testimony To The Atrocities

Here we have a killer old-school deathcore release from 2001. The death metal influence is especially strong on this full-length, which sounds like the end result of a bunch of hardcore kids discovering Suffocation. The vocals for the most part are consistent with that raspy metalcore style that is prevalent among bands like this, but the music itself borrows heavily from technical death metal and brutal death metal, even more so than on their excellent debut EP. There are a lot of technical guitar riffs and constant blast beats that make this lean much more toward metal than Upheaval's previous outing. That being said, they didn't quite pull an Abnegation and go full on brutal death. There are still plenty of core elements like the vocals and plenty of breakdowns. I was able to get a sealed copy of this on Discogs for around $20, which was a good deal considering this is a cult classic from 20 years ago.

Immortal Dominion - Endure

The debut full-length album from a relatively unknown extreme metal group. 1998's Endure is a neat death/groove metal romp that isn't afraid to throw a few curveballs. The album is mostly mid-tempo, but has a good amount of tempo changes with some thrashier bits and offbeat stuff thrown in for good measure. There are also some enjoyable breakdowns and plenty of stop-start riffage throughout the album that I dig. It actually reminds me a bit of Pissing Razors. The vocals are very good, sounding like a cross between Phil Anselmo and Jamey Jasta. There are occassional death growls that are performed very well and there is one song, Brighter Days, that has southern rockish cleans that don't really land for me. There are more cleans in Piece of Meat that are a bit better but still not great. It's a bit weaker toward the middle, but the strong start and finish are enough to make me happy I picked this up from the same seller that sold me the Upheaval album.

Immortal Dominion - Awakening

Here we have the 2005 follow up to Immortal Dominion's Endure, which I got from 641distro. The band doubled down on the death metal elements this time around as the album is heavier, faster, and more technical than it's predecessor while still retaining a strong groove metal feel. The vocals are a lot more varied, with a raspy high pitched snarl being introduced along with the Anselmo/Jasta style vocals and more frequent death growls. There are even some decent Anselmo-style cleans mixed in. The most obvious improvement here is the drumming. I don't know whether the band got a new drummer or if he just got a lot better in the 7 years between albums but the drums are fucking nuts on this album in comparison to the pretty basic drumming on Endure. There are plenty of catchy riffs on this album and even some metalcore style mosh parts. I like this one a lot and I'm really glad I decided to take a chance on this band. They put out one more album after this which is unfortunately just shitty dad metal but hey, 2 out of 3 ain't bad.

 

Nothing Sacred - Nothing Sacred 

This is another one I got from 641distro. Some solid heavy hardcore, if not at all original. Sounds very 2005. Expect tough guy vocals, downtuned but very HxC riffs, and simple drumming. This band eventually evolved into the Holy Terror band Unreal City, who I think are a little better.

Smackdown - Harder Than Hate

This is an old lesser known CTHC release from 1998 that I was able to track down at Redscroll Records. The only reason I knew this band existed was due to an old CTHC tripod site I found randomly. I'm glad I found it though because it's actually pretty damn good. Smackdown played heavy, mostly midtempo chugga-chugga hardcore. There is a lot of groove in these songs, even to the point where I detect a noticeable Machine Head or Exhorder influence in the guitar work. They also have more traditional 2-step parts and faster moments that sound more akin to old-school hardcore. Definitely a good find and fine addition to my CT band catalog.

 

Lariat/At War With Shadows - Split

Cool split from 2 early 2000s metalcore bands I got from 641distro. Lariat have a very dark, dissonant, and technical metalcore sound that borrows heavily from early mathcore. It's a little like Deadguy meets Acme. Very intense and intricate, but still remains rhythmic and moshy. At War With Shadows have a somewhat similar sound, but without the dissonant, dark tone and an even stronger mathcore influence. AWWS also incorporate a decent amount of melody into their music and are able to make it work alongside their chaotic breakdowns. Overall an excellent effort from both bands. They each also have their own full lengths that are also worth checking out.

Sarcasm - Burial Dimensions

This is a compilation I picked up at Redscroll that consists of the album of the same name plus a ton of demos from the Swedish death metal group Sarcasm. Apparently, the full length was recorded in 1994 but didn't see the light of day until 2011 as part of a different compilation as the band disbanded before it was released. Now, the band is back together recording music and have been since 2015. The album is a very good slab of black metal influenced 90s HM2 death metal with a surprising amount of melody. A majority of the demos included sound great for early 90s death metal demos. though I am sure that they were cleaned up a bit before being included here. The earlier demos have a much more raw Swedeath vibe to them, really dig those as well. $11 for over 2 hours of great death metal. Can't complain.

Red Tide - Themes Of The Cosmic Consciousness

This is the debut full length from another CT band, Red Tide. Much like with Sarcasm, this full length came to fruition after the band recorded like half a dozen demos over a period of years. Red Tide are a different breed. This band plays a weird hybrid of death metal, hardcore, progressive rock, and free jazz. They're essentially a crazier version of Candiria. I honestly really dig it. It's very different, especially from what was coming out at the time, and shows that there is some very creative stuff that flies under the radar. This was released on CD back in 1997, so it's pretty hard to come by. It's actually the only disk on this list that I paid a significant amount of money for. I got it off Discogs for around $60 and I normally don't spend that kind of money on CDs but I collect Connecticut metal and hardcore releases and this band is just so different I couldn't resist.

Red Tide - Type II

Okay, so I'm not quite sure what happened here. Red Tide went from being a super experimental prog death metal band to a metalcore band with some prog rock elements. It's still pretty good, but nowhere close to their first album. This was very jarring to listen to. The music is much more direct and much more "core" with some more proggy passages and some clean vocals that sound kind of buttrockish and aren't that great. I got this from 641distro and it's generally much cheaper than Themes of the Cosmic Conciousness, probably due to a larger quantity made and the overall musical quality not being quite the same. Overall, still a very solid release but definitely leaves one wanting.

Sea Of Thousand - The Church Of Total Collapse

This is another cool one from 641. The cover led me to believe that this would be a straight up metalcore record but it's actually a blend of hardcore and sludge metal. Frantic, high pitched vocals with some death growls, a style that kind of reminds me of Randy from Lamb of God. Plenty of those brooding, heavy, almost southern-tinged guitar riffs you see in sludge metal. here as well. I love finding more interesting releases like this amidst the sea of Hatebreed, Terror, and Bane clones that populated the hardcore scene in the mid to late 2000s.

What Weapons Bring War - What Weapons Bring War

This was another free bonus from 641 and a pretty sweet one at that. This is really good deathcore heavily influenced by mathcore and grindcore. Chaotic and high pitched vocals, skronky guitar parts, deathcore breakdowns, blast beats, the whole package is here. I keep seeing this band labeled as "brutal death metal" on what few pages of info I can find on them but this is very clearly old-school deathcore. What's more, this band is actually from Bristol, Connecticut. I've never heard of them but I'm glad this was included because it adds to my ever growing Connecticut collection.

Light is the Language - The Void Falls Silent

Rounding out this list is yet another CD from 641distro. More good shit. Great chaotic metalcore from Massachusetts. Definitely detect a mathcore vibe, but retains the tightness of more straight up metalcore. Kind of reminds me of old Converge. Highly recommended for those of you into old school technical shit made by hardcore kids in the noughties.

Unraveling The Mystery of Arkangel

 

I've never encountered a story like that of Arkangel. It's so shrouded in myth and mystery that even today no one is sure of the truth regarding this band's history, which is especially odd considering the band is still active. Arkangel is a Belgian metalcore band that formed in the late 90s. They play an aggressive, evil-sounding style of metalcore that was very popular in Europe at the time. This metalcore microgenre is often referred to as "edgemetal" due to influences taken from extreme metal bands and its association with Straight Edge acts. Arkangel didn't pioneer this sound, but they refined it, made it their own, and are among the most popular bands to ever play it. Arkangel's brand of the edgemetal sound combines somewhat technical, yet moshy, metalcore with thrash metal riffs and faint traces of Swedish melodic death metal. Imagine "Hell Awaits" and "South of Heaven" era Slayer with breakdowns and you basically have Arkangel. 

The band, like many in the European hardcore/metalcore scene at the time, were apparently a militant Vegan Straight Edge band, and were extremely vocal about their sober and cruelty-free lifestyle. The story says that after their first two releases, a 1998 EP entitled "Prayers Upon Deaf Ears" and a full length entitled "Dead Man Walking" that released in 1999, their guitarist and founder, Numa Malabat, who was their musical and ideological linchpin, left the band. Following Numa's departure, all or almost all of the remaining members very suddenly dropped both veganism and Straight Edge. They were reportedly spotted at bars and restaurants drinking and eating meat. Hell, a friend of mine told me earlier this month that he heard they broke edge on cocaine and I heard somewhere else that frontman Baldur went on a coke-fueled bender in London at some point. A large portion of the Belgian scene was very militantly Straight Edge/Vegan Straight Edge at this point in time, so this didn't go over well with some people. By some accounts, they still fronted the whole XVX thing for awhile after they broke edge/vegan and that was what pissed people off, but I can't confirm that. In 2001, Arkangel came to the US and played some shows including Hellfest 2001. At one of these shows, someone, said to be a disgruntled Vegan Straight Edger, held up a sign that said something along the lines of "I hope you die by overdose". I think this video is from that show. You can see some dude holding up a sign and a fight start a few seconds into Arkangel's first song. Some people think this happened at Hellfest, others say it happened at a different show, some guy said that that the whole sign thing was the start of some band beef with Shattered Realm, no one knows what the hell actually happened at this point. That instance actually inspired the title of Arkangel's second full length "Hope You Die By Overdose" which came out in 2004. The band went on to release another full length, "Arkangel Is Your Enemy", in 2008 and still play shows today.

So that's the history of Arkangel. Now I'm going to look a little bit deeper. I already talked about some discrepancies and things that are not 100% known, but there is more to unearth. I realized at one point that I never saw any photos of Arkangel X'd up at any shows or anything and saw mixed accounts, some saying that Arkangel were Straight Edge and some saying they weren't. I heard about flyers that showed the band as "xArkangelx" but never saw any myself. That got me wondering. I had never seen any direct evidence of the band being XVX, so could this whole thing have been some sort of misunderstanding due to word of mouth or misinterpretation of their lyrics? It was definitely possible. To this day if your band plays a style reminiscent of edgemetal, many people will automatically assume you're a Vegan Straight Edge band for some reason. I decided to take matters into my own hands and look into this myself. Arkangel are one of my favorite bands, I have an interest in the history of older heavy music scenes, and I've been Straight Edge myself for over 9 years, so I thought it would be fun to see if I could get to the bottom of this. First, I looked at their lyrics on their first two releases. Nothing there was explicitly Straight Edge, which isn't too uncommon for XXX bands, but still that means the lyrics can't confirm if they were Straight Edge or not. I then decided to investigate the original Prayers Upon Death Ears CD release on Discogs. There weren't many scans there, but there was this one:

So based on that last paragraph, we can safely assume that Arkangel were at one point a vegan band. Nothing references Straight Edge, so that is still an unknown, but we are halfway there at this point. After further research, I came across an interview with Arkangel guitarist Kirby Michel from 2008 on French website skartnak.com. Kirby joined Arkangel in 2001, after they apparently broke edge and vegan. There are a few passages of note here. I had to run them through Google Translate since I don't speak French, but it's accurate enough for me to get the gist of what they are saying. I've edited the answers for grammar so they are more easy to read as well.

By the way, speaking of "Hope You Die by Overdose", can you tell me what the meaning of this sentence is? Is this an ultra militant Straight-edge message?

Not at all, it was basically a threat to our singer Baldur from a frustrated American fan. He was at a show we did there and he had a poster on which he wrote: Baldur, I Hope You Die By Overdose. Thanks to this fan or ex-fan because he gave us one of the most beautiful album titles we could hope for.

 

 
Do you still care about the fight for animal rights?

Me, I have always been concerned by this fight but I never felt the need to adopt a label for it.
 

 

I know Arkangel is basically a committed Vegan / Straight Edge group but are you still currently Vegan and Straight Edge? What about the other members of the group?

I have never been Vegan or Straight-Edge. Baldur, the singer as well as David, the drummer were in their youth but growing up they tasted, as they said, the delights of life.

 

Okay, that shed some light on the history of this band for sure. Kirby wasn't in the band originally, so his lack of XVXness can be ignored. Baldur Vilmundarson and David Vandezande have been in Arkangel since the beginning and we now have confirmation that they were both Straight Edge earlier in their lives. According to Encyclopaedia Metallum, the lineup for Prayers Upon Deaf Ears was Baldur on vocals, David on drums, and Numa on guitar. There is no bassist listed. On the next release, Dead Man Walking, these three are listed again along with Vincent Kempeneers on bass. Vincent also played in a band called Out For Blood, where he was credited on their demo as xVincentx and on their full length release as XVincX, confirming that he was also Straight Edge. That does it. Prior to Numa's departure, Arkangel were 100% a Vegan Straight Edge band. There is no doubt in my mind now. I'm glad I was able to put this to rest for myself and deduce the truth behind the band. Straight Edge or not, Arkangel are one of the best metalcore bands of all time and their influence on "true" metalcore can't be understated. Just as a little sidenote to end this piece: I have to say I can't imagine how little you have to have going on to be legitimately angry that someone else broke edge or vegan. I was really bummed out when I found out most of Vatican broke edge and they weren't an XXX band anymore but I didn't write to them saying I hoped they drank themselves into a coma or anything like that. It also didn't change my opinion of them because Vatican are still among my favorite metalcore bands. I'm glad the majority of the militant edge crowd have moved on because that mindset was always fucking stupid. Anyway, listen to Arkangel.

Wulin Warriors: The Most Hated Show in Cartoon Network History

 A few days ago, I finished a massive video on the infamous Wulin Warriors. Here it is for your viewing pleasure:

Life With COVID-19 and Post-Election Thoughts

 So on Election Day, two hours after I voted, I tested positive for Coronavirus. As a result, I am locked in my house so I don't give it to anyone else (given how contentious this election was, it was probably for the best that I wasn't outside anyway). Let me tell you, having this thing sucks. One night, before I knew anything was wrong, I woke up with cold sweats. For the next few nights, I hit a wall at like 8pm or so and was extremely fatigued. After that, I started feeling sore and was coughing and had a stuffy nose. After testing positive, I had different symptoms every day. I had terrible body aches that made me not want to move at all, I had a fever that went away soon after, then came back again and went away a second time, I had brain fog that severely impacted my ability to do work, and at one point my sinuses were so swollen, it hurt to breathe through my nose. I also can't taste anything that isn't salty, which fucking sucks. Despite all of this, I seriously think that the mental toll this virus took on me was worse than the physical. Early on, my mind was racing, wondering if I would die of the virus or get some sort of permanent organ damage. I'm very lucky I just had a minor case, though I'm still not fully recovered and operating at I would say 95%. My isolation ends Friday, but I'm still not leaving for a few more days just to be sure. No reason to risk infecting others. Thankfully I was able to Zoom in to my classes and not miss much, I'll just keep doing that. I will say Trump losing the election and the temper tantrums thrown by him and his supporters helped put me in a good mood during the worst of the virus. I am not a Joe Biden fan by any stretch of the imagination, but the country needs a better leader to guide it through this chaos. I have to say I am absolutely stunned that 71 million people looked at the events of last 4 years including all the scandals, the pandemic, the current economic depression, the divisiveness, the violence, and the lies and thought "yeah, I want more of that". I knew this dude was a charlatan and a con-artist from the beginning and it floors me that his supporters don't see that despite everything that has happened. Trump isn't even trying to be a populist anymore, he's run the worst political campaign I've ever seen in my life, and he STILL got 71 million votes! This country has some serious critical thinking issues. Fingers crossed Trump's coup attempt is a miserable failure and the impending ideological civil war in the Republican party destroys it from the inside.

Deleting My Terrible Teenage Short Story

So with the quarantine still in full swing, I'm finding new ways to pass the time. One thing I decided to do was read an old short story I wrote in the summer of 2012 when I was 14 years old. Like most things 14 year olds write, it sucked. It really, really sucked. As I got older I realized this and cringed whenever I thought about it. Upon finally rereading it in full nearly 8 years later as a 22 year old, I realized that not only was the story exceptionally bad, it was also an absolutely terrifying look into my mindset at that age. But I'm getting ahead of myself, so let's go back a bit.

Just so you, dear reader, have the necessary background information, I'm going to let you in on what was going on during my early teenage years. From ages 13 to 16, I was depressed. Upon entering middle school, I had zero self esteem and was painfully socially awkward. Seeing everyone else be a social butterfly (or at least have the appearance of being one) didn't help either. To make things worse, I was also relentlessly bullied by various people throughout this point in my life. Needless to say, I was very sad and angry and buried myself in music and video games to take my mind off of my situation. I decided to write a short story as a catharsis during the summer between 8th and 9th grade. For what it's worth, I do think it helped me a little bit but that doesn't change my current feelings on it. I'm not going to go into the full details of the plot because it's really gut-wrenching to even talk about, but I will say it was essentially a mystery story about a semi self-insert character who, while sleepwalking, exacts revenge on people who wronged him and goes on the run, slowing figuring out the details of what happened. It wasn't like a shooting or mass murder type thing, I wasn't that screwed up, but it did involve people being attacked. Now that I've set the scene, let's get into the story and why I'm ashamed of it.

Right off the bat, my main character gives this super pretentious and annoying "not like the other kids" spiel and that vibe carries throughout the whole story. I also for some reason felt the need to have characters representing pretty much everyone who was in my life at that point, even if they only appear once. All the characters in this story regularly get into violent fights for some reason, like excessive violence is just a part of everyday life in this town and no one really questions it. Come to think of it, I wrote just about every character to be a fucking lunatic. Some characters help the main character knowing he's a wanted murderer just because they were friends before or casually talk to him even though they just met him and know he's a fugitive. In addition to the sleepwalking attacks, the main character, while in control of himself, assaults by my count at least 7 people and even kills a few. Some of them are attacking him, so in those cases it's justified, but it's just so fucking dumb that this dude is just casually beating up and shooting people without a second thought. Also, nobody seems to have any sympathy for the victims of his crimes. Like, yeah, they were over the top assholes but they were still people. Even the main character, who involuntarily attacked them in his sleep, is like "yeah they all deserved it, so whatever" with others around him agreeing with him. While I'm on this, I'm going to talk about how I portrayed the bully characters because my God, this is so out there and extreme it makes me want to bang my head against the wall. Every bully character is pretty much an irredeemable human being with no positive qualities, acting comically evil and judgemental. The thing that finally sets the main character off is a super over the top prank that involves him being kidnapped, stripped naked by these characters, tied to a pole, videotaped, and that video being shown to hundreds of people. Also, the way the reveal of the video is done is very contrived and idiotic and would never happen in real life. There's also a scene that involves a fight between a gang and white supremacist group that the protagonist and his friends are caught in the middle of because both groups have a bone to pick with them, but they also both happen to find them at the house they're staying in at the same time for some reason. The guy who owns the house ends up pulling out a bunch of military grade shiny weapons and arms the whole group of friends which makes no fucking sense. Oh, by the way, that character happens to both be a psychologist with a ton of brain scanning technology in his basement but he's also a lawyer. Jesus Christ my head hurts just talking about this. I'll skip over a bunch of dumb shit and wrap it up: the main character turns himself in, goes to a wacky shack for 8 months, gets better, and continues his life like nothing happened, the end.

Okay, because talking about this clusterfuck of a story is driving me insane, I'll leave the details at that, I'm sure you get the picture. What I want to talk about now is how the story reminded me of who I was back then. I was honestly horrified. Since the plot is so incoherent, I was really reading this as a case study, a look into who I was at 14. I know I was not doing so well, like I said previously, but reading this story really showed me how hurt and angry I was back then. I was honestly a pretty miserable person and it showed through my writing. I remember sending this to a very helpful therapist who I was seeing on and off at the time due to my anxiety and depression. He's the only person other than me to ever see this work. I don't think he read the whole thing and I thank God for that because I would have probably been seeing him until the cows came home. I know he printed it out and that remains the only physical copy of this to ever exist. It's probably tucked away in a file somewhere or thrown out. There was a silver lining to this experience, however. Rereading this showed how much I've grown since I was 14 and I'm proud of what that angry, sad kid grew into. But, like I said, reading this was painful. That's why I deleted the story after I finished reading. Honestly, that felt pretty cathartic as well, deleting something born from adolescent anger and sadness. It kind of symbolizes that I'm not that person anymore. Most of those emotions I felt as a teenager are gone. Many of the people I once held absolute contempt for, I no longer really think about. Many of the things I thought were super important at that age ended up not mattering. The leftover feelings I have from that time in my life I use as motivation to improve and work hard in school and my career. I want the people who treated me poorly in high school to hear my name again one day when I accomplish something. I hope they've grown up a bit at that point and they're happy to see I'm doing well. It's like Frank Sinatra said: "The best revenge is massive success." I regret having a shitty adolescence, but I'm thankful that I've had a pretty great young adulthood so far. Here's hoping that continues.