Okay, I realized this is probably too soon given the Aurora shootings, but it popped into my head so I figured I’d share it. Let me tone it down a bit in the interests of taste, though.
Suppose you were arrested for some sort of high-profile crime (let’s even say you didn’t do it, but evidence points strongly at you anyway). The kind of crime that gets on the news all over the country. So naturally the media is going to be digging into your life to try to come up with “justification” for why you did it. And as usual, they will probably get it wrong by settling on some irrelevant part of your life (like the fact that you favor black trench coats, or you have an extensive death-metal collection).
For me, it would be my large collection of roleplaying games, including things like Shadowrun (which is a game that involves magic, big guns, a dystopian near-future society, and a generally pretty nihilistic attitude about the world), my collection of pointy things (fantasy swords and daggers), my MMORPG habits (WoW, SWTOR, and The Secret World, which obviously make me a loner with no friends who spends my time coming up with ways to kill people), and almost certainly the fact that I write fiction that includes some pretty gory and violent stuff.
I own multiple firearms, thus I have “an arsenal with thousands of rounds”, and one of them is a 10mm loaded with hollow-point ammunition, thus I have “a powerful weapon which proves that I wanted to kill someone”.
Lest you think I am kidding about the second one, look up “Harold Fish”. I’d link to it myself but an iPad is useless for citations.
That I’m quiet, shy, and semi-reclusive, I’m sure will be made much of. Apparently, it means you’re weird now, judging by the reports on James Holmes.
Also that I’m estranged from several members of my family. Of course, they won’t report that the people I’m estranged from are assholes or perverts- I’ll be made to look like the asshole.
Ooh ooh, yes, mental illness. That dastardly Malleus has been on heavy psychiatric medication for years, and yet no one stopped her from _____. (Because a person with anxiety and depression is totally the same as a paranoid schizophrenic who’s been off her meds for a while).
And she’s never had any kind of romantic relationship. As far as we know, she hasn’t even even gone on a date. Clearly she blew her stack because of all those repressed sexual desires.
And she spends way too much time with her cats. She talks to them with actual cat noises. She certainly seems to care more about them than she does about the humans she knows.