Today, we’re shooting a Very Special Episode of Not The Flog, where I’m going to share some of my favorite horror-themed tabletop games. I have a pretty big list in my head, but I’m sure there’s something awesome that I’m forgetting, so if you wanted to maybe get onto Not The Flog, tell me the title of the game you love, why you love it, and what your favorite Halloween candy is. I’ll pick some and put them into the show, which is coming out sooooooon.
Soooooon.
Soon.
Trigger Warning: Bullying and Abuse.
When I was in elementary school, I was bullied by the kid who lived across the street. It started the day we moved in, and it continued until the day we moved out.
His bullying was relentless: I’d be sitting in my front yard playing with my Star Wars figures, and he’d come over and start threatening to take them, break them, hurt me, whatever he had on his broken little mind, until I either started crying or ran into my house. I remember riding my Big Wheel on my sidewalk, and this kid rode up behind me on his dirt bike, crashed it into my back, knocked my legs under my big wheel, and pushed me up the sidewalk until my screams brought parents out of houses. I had skin torn off my spine, and I still have two scars on my knees, and one on the top of my left foot. He shot me with his BB gun one day, narrowly missing my eye. The one time I punched him in the nose, he ran to his dad, who came out of his house and yelled at me. I remember being terrified that he was going to hit me, or worse.
This kid was abusive and cruel. If he’d been an adult, the things he did to me would have qualified as assault, but whenever my parents confronted his parents, nothing happened. I remember being angry with them for not doing more to protect me, but realize in retrospect that they probably did everything they could; this kid’s father was a gun nut, ran with bikers, had friends in the local police department, and basically got away with anything. Eventually, I just stopped telling my parents about my bully, because he’d just bully me worse when I did.
I don’t know what happened to that kid as he grew up. His older siblings were in and out of jail a lot, has father beat his mother, and I would be very surprised if anyone in that family went on to live a happy and fulfilling life. If I’m being honest, I hope that kid is in jail somewhere where he can’t hurt anybody else.
I haven’t thought about that kid in years — these aren’t the kinds of memories that I want to revisit — but I saw some people talking about stopping bullying on Twitter today, including this from Anne:
My son was repeatedly bullied by a kid in 4th grade. The principal made excuses for the kid such as “He comes from a single parent home.”
— Anne Witchon (@AnneWheaton) October 17, 2013
I couldn’t get any teachers, counselors or even the principal to stop this kid from bullying Ryan. The kid did it for years&it was horrible
— Anne Witchon (@AnneWheaton) October 17, 2013
The school finally did suspended the kid who kept bullying Ryan in 7th grade after having to pay for medical bills for Ryan.
— Anne Witchon (@AnneWheaton) October 17, 2013
Ryan was shoved over a railing & hit his head,causing a concussion & whiplash. Because it happened on school grounds, they had to pay for it
— Anne Witchon (@AnneWheaton) October 17, 2013
No one should have to endure bullying. It shouldn’t take physical injury for a school to step in & stop years of emotional injury.
— Anne Witchon (@AnneWheaton) October 17, 2013
Be a good parent, whether you’re single or not. Teach your child to love & respect themselves enough to treat others the same way.
— Anne Witchon (@AnneWheaton) October 17, 2013
I was a single parent for years. That is the worst excuse for allowing bullying, ever. I told the principal that & he had no comment.
— Anne Witchon (@AnneWheaton) October 17, 2013
My mom rant is done. #StopBullying
— Anne Witchon (@AnneWheaton) October 17, 2013
Anne and I are both sitting here, in our hotel in Texas, crying at these memories. Years later, bullying still hurts.
I also hadn’t thought about all the torment that Ryan had to endure, until I read Anne’s Twitter. I remembered how helpless we felt, how we tried and tried and tried to get someone at the school to do something — to do anything — to help our son, and how the school just made excuses until our son was seriously injured. The school didn’t care at all that he was emotionally abused, and never bothered to address the physical abuse until it cost them money.
The thing is, the bullying that Ryan and I both endured was entirely random. Though our experiences were roughly 20 years apart, they fit a pattern: We did nothing to deserve it. Some kid who was unhappy decided to make us a target, we were helpless to stop it, and the people we turned to who should have helped stop it either couldn’t, or wouldn’t. Just sitting here right now, remembering it, I want to go back in time and make that goddamn school, starting with the coward who was the principal at Ryan’s elementary school, do something about it, so I could save my son from suffering torment that he didn’t deserve, that no child deserves.
Ryan and I both grew up to be successful and happy adults. I don’t know what happened to my bully, but Ryan’s bully is stuck in the community he grew up in, working a dead end job. He looks miserable, and I’m not proud to admit that I’m glad. I hope he suffers for a long time. I’m ashamed to admit that whenever I see him, I want to hurt him the way he hurt my son, but it seems that life is doing that for me.
Who knows what that kid could have done with his life if he’d gotten the help he needed to choose a different path? Who knows how many other kids he hurt, because nobody did anything to stop him?
All people deserve to be happy, and all children deserve to grow up in an environment where they feel safe and free. Schools need to have clear policies in place to stop bullying. Communities need to make it very clear that bullying won’t be tolerated, and bullies — and their parents — need to be held accountable for their actions.
I often feel like Twitter hashtag things are great for making a lot of noise, but not very useful for actually accomplishing meaningful goals. I sincerely hope that this one will be different. Don’t just talk about how we need to #StopBullying, actually do something about it. Talk to parents and kids, live your life by example, and let’s break the cycle, together.
This week, Ashly Burch, Keahu Kahuanui and Michael Swaim join me to play one of my very favorite RPG-in-a-box games: Betrayal at House on the Hill.
I’m a huge fan of Ashly’s work in Borderlands 2, and after I met her at Valve last year, I became a huge fan of her as a human. She’s really awesome and a hell of a lot of fun to play with. If you like things that don’t suck, check out Hey Ash, Watcha Playin’?
Keahu and I have a ton of friends in common, but we’d never met until just before we shot this episode. Since then, we’ve become very good friends, and I even get to be a Bad Idea Bear for him from time to time when giant pizza is involved. Thank you, Tabletop Gaming, for helping me make a new friend. Oh, and Keahu is on some TV show about wolf hunters or something like that. I think it’s animated.
Michael Swaim knows Felicia, and is a lifelong tabletop gamer, just like me. He also writes for Cracked.com. Felicia suggested that I invite him to the show, because he’s hilarious and fun to be around, and she was pretty sure we’d like each other. I hate to admit it, but Felicia was right.
This was so much fun to play, and so much incredibly awesome stuff happened, we ended up cutting it into a two-part episode (but fear not! Part two comes out next week, because we love you and don’t want to make you wait two whole weeks for the second part. Did I mention that it was awesome? It’s awesome.)
When I get home from Texas, we’re shooting a Very Special Episode of Not The Flog, where I’m going to share some of my favorite horror-themed tabletop games. I have a pretty big list in my head, but I’m sure there’s something awesome that I’m forgetting, so if you wanted to maybe get onto Not The Flog, tell me the title of the game you love, why you love it, and what your favorite Halloween candy is. I’ll pick some and put them into the show, which is coming out sooooooon.
Soooooon.
Soon.
Anyway, turn down your lights (where applicable) and enjoy the show!
Not sure why I’m all-caps serious in the title, but it probably has something to do with not getting enough sleep last night, driving through fuckingawfulawfulawful traffic to get to work and back today (I’m in an audiobook version of a graphic novel that will come out in December and we finished it today), and the realization that it’s almost Halloween and I haven’t put up a single scary decoration, not even a list of what chicken nuggets are actually made of.
But I digress: Anne and I are coming to Texas for some shows this week with Paul and Storm. Information follows:
Thu 10/17: Central Presbyterian Church – Austin, TX – tix:
Fri 10/18: Fitzgerald’s – Houston, TX – tix:
Sun 10/20: Granada Theater – Dallas, TX – tix:
And now here’s the sound a cow makes:
MOOOOOOOOOO
Okay, now that I’ve taken care of that business, I can go pick out and pack clothes for our trip.
This is pretty much how it goes whenever I try to play fetch with Marlowe.
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