War Zone Tourist

[Q. G. Pennyworth]

A bulletproof vest isn't all that expensive. I know where they sell them around here, the cop supply store that's still got the donut shop sign out front. I'll need to pack a lot of dried food, probably some of those water purifier things. Last thing you need in a war zone is a bad case of foreign microbe syndrome. The nurse supply store is a couple towns over, I can grab simple shit like gauze and catheters there, couple boxes of latex gloves and face masks. Nothing too bulky. I'll need a new pair of hiking boots: light and sturdy with enough support in the ankles that I won't go full-on retard and twist 'em while trying to sprint past the sniper positions on rubble covered streets.

I wonder how cold it is this time of year.

I don't speak the language, but there's some folks who speak English, and I can help with stupid shit like hauling around supplies and changing bandages. And hell, if I get shot that's an extra hour of airtime they'll get on CNN the next day. It matters more when it's non-smudgy people dying, don'tcha know?

Maybe I'll be a hero, and save a kid from a bombed out home.* Maybe I'll find out I'm not terrible at guns and help in more concrete ways. Maybe I can get supplies where they're needed and just not get in the way too much. But more probably I'll just get my stupid foreign ass horribly injured and become another burden. That's what happens to most of them, you know. What's a suburban white kid know about living though a military assault? I don't know those streets, don't know those people. I don't know the food or the culture or the first thing about taking care of myself. I've never even been in a goddamned riot before.

But that's where something's happening. That's where there's something dangerous and real. No padded corners on the playground, no nerf darts, and not the nihilistic risk of "bad neighborhoods" and pointless risky behavior. Fuck getting high. I'm gonna see the world burn. I'll probably crack, come back a broken man, twisted in mind and body from the Things I've Seen. God knows I'm not stable to begin with. The closest I've ever come to seeing a man die was when that cyclist hit the pavement face first, the cameras rolling as blood gushed out of his broken nose like a waterfall: dark and hot and fast. They switched camera feeds when the medics started CPR. I cried watching the Daily Show, ffs. Those newlyweds smiling and waving to the camera a week before the elections, green wristbands proudly displayed. They might have already been dead by the time that hit the air.

I probably won't survive the front lines, but staying home is killing me.



*at this point in writing the CNN notification popped up that evacuation of women, children, and the wounded from Homs has finally begun.

[Doktor Howl]

This is a terrible idea.  Take it from me, anyone that can avoid a combat zone should avoid a combat zone.  And to go to a combat zone for kicks is the worst kind of porn I can imagine.

Assuming this isn't some kind of metaphor that I am too dense to grasp.

Also, why are you male in that one?

[Q. G. Pennyworth]

Not a thing I'm doing, just a thing I am seeing other people do and certain bits of my brain totally agree with them in principle. Those are not the bits that get to do the driving, but they can talk to the writing parts every once in a while.

I dunno why the male pronouns came in there, I think it's because I've been spending a lot of time in communities where the default assumption was "male" and specifying "female" made our work different and I found it got in the way of honest evaluations.

On that tangent, it's been really interesting to see how different my assumptions on gender for posters in this forum are from thr assumptions I make elsewhere on the internets. As in, generally not assuming anything until someone specifies one way or another.

[LMNO]

Did you know that I am an 18-year-old girl?

[Nephew Twiddleton]

Iirc thats exactly why nigel calls herself nigel.

[Q. G. Pennyworth]

Did you know that I am an 18-year-old girl?

You should not be drinking with strange men from the internet, then, young lady!

[LMNO]

YOU CAN'T TELL ME WHAT TO DO, MOM!

[Doktor Howl]

Did you know that I am an 18-year-old girl?

With one hell of a mustache, I might add.

Aw hell.  Gotta change. BRB.

[Doktor Howl]

Not a thing I'm doing, just a thing I am seeing other people do and certain bits of my brain totally agree with them in principle.

Wait.  What?

[Q. G. Pennyworth]

YOU CAN'T TELL ME WHAT TO DO, MOM!

YOU WILL FINISH YOUR VEGETABLES AND CLEAN YOUR ROOM OR YOU ARE NEVER GOING TO SEE THAT AWFUL BOY WITH THE MOTORCYCLE EVER AGAIN!

[Q. G. Pennyworth]

Not a thing I'm doing, just a thing I am seeing other people do and certain bits of my brain totally agree with them in principle.

Wait.  What?

I am not running off to Syria to get myself killed. I know of people who are. There are parts of my brain that are totally in the same space as them. These are the stupid parts that don't get to drive, but they sure do an awful lot of yelling from the back seat.

[Doktor Howl]

Not a thing I'm doing, just a thing I am seeing other people do and certain bits of my brain totally agree with them in principle.

Wait.  What?

I am not running off to Syria to get myself killed. I know of people who are. There are parts of my brain that are totally in the same space as them. These are the stupid parts that don't get to drive, but they sure do an awful lot of yelling from the back seat.

Darwin says "hello" to these people, and frankly, I'm a little repulsed.  They can't do any good (remember Rachel Corrie?  Neither do I), whatsoever, so the only reason to go is adrenaline rushes or the bragging rights of Being There.

Both of which are pretty fucking ghoulish, when you think about it.

There's no way to describe a war zone, even a minor one.  The best I can suggest to any of these fuckers that want to do this on a budget is for them to hang around the ER outside the pediatric trauma ward for a few days, let them get their nasty little fucking kicks on the cheap.

On the other hand, if they claim to want to assuage their privileged guilt, then they can fucking give a pile of cash to Doctors Without Borders, and then go back to work to gather the next donation.  Thing is, most people who claim that are the same kind of people that put on Dashikis back in '69 and pretended to be Black...Not as solidarity, but as a personal little ego trip.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Iirc thats exactly why nigel calls herself nigel.

Yes, pretty much.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Did you know that I am an 18-year-old girl?

With one hell of a mustache, I might add.

Aw hell.  Gotta change. BRB.

[Freeky]

I dunno why the male pronouns came in there, I think it's because I've been spending a lot of time in communities where the default assumption was "male" and specifying "female" made our work different and I found it got in the way of honest evaluations.

On that tangent, it's been really interesting to see how different my assumptions on gender for posters in this forum are from thr assumptions I make elsewhere on the internets. As in, generally not assuming anything until someone specifies one way or another.

Chicas here are respected or jeered at based on content.  My own observations of PD gender are that it doesn't matter one way or the other.  In fact our ladyfolk tend to be stronger personalities on average. 

That the chicks tend to be hotter here than other places on the internet.