Episode 36 - Groups

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  Welcome back to the podcast! And yeah, I’m feeling slightly better today. I’m not sure why exactly. Maybe it is because I’m spending less time on TikTok? And I’m not sure what you might make of that statement. Because this is not me trying to signal some sense of superiority or look down on the masses who genuinely enjoy or even make a living off that app. I’m sure it has its purpose or place in society. I don’t think a venue where people can have fun automatically deserves condemnation for said fun or that said fun is being had by the youth. I mean, yes, there are data concerns, but honestly, I think that data is out there already. I think a lot about ourselves is spread out across the internet. We shed pieces of ourselves without knowing or really choosing to do it. It just happened, and we’ll never get all those pieces back together.

Which does not make data farming okay, I will add. Do not put words in my mouth. There’s something definitely immoral about it. But I’ve just made peace with that side of TikTok and all social media. Yes, there are parts of me that have been taken away and commoditized without my permission or any actual benefit to me. But I’ve known worse. There’s always worse. 

Not to be dismissive, again, of course. I don’t mean that ever. I just can’t tell you what I do mean. I can hardly show you my festering scars in a medium such as this and when my tongue has long since learned to be still. But people have always taken things from me. And I’ve never really benefited from it at all. 

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It was easy to say that the queen mother simply died of a broken heart. Her husband and one true love was dead, and as so many of all ranks and status have done before her, she succumbed to her own heartbreak, closed her eyes for one last time, and clutching a lock of her dear husband’s hair, took her last breath. Perhaps there were reasons to doubt the story. Some courtiers in the palace had vague memories of marital unrest, but they eagerly held their tongues. There was nothing to gain by crossing the royal family in something so small. After all, it was only an older woman who had died. And what did the old queen matter to any of them? Pleasing the current king was the most important thing, relative to their survival at court of course. 

So no one raised an objection when the queen was laid to rest without an examination by the royal physician, and everyone turned their heads when soiled linen was brought out of the queen mother’s chambers. The bright scarlet across the pillow cases did not matter to them. The king was undisturbed after all. At least publicly. Under their scrutinizing eyes, he remained calm at every junction. A soft smolder was in his eyes, but no one was ready to ask about it. 

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Honestly, I think I’m just glad to have a chance to not… I don’t know. People come to that app to point out all that’s wrong with the world or all the pains they have in their lives. And yes, I one-thousand-percent think that everyone should have an opportunity to speak their truths or advocate for their causes, but on TikTok, it’s back to back to back. It’s a lot. Or it can be if the algorithm thinks doom-scrolling is the best way to maximize your time on the app and the related advertisement revenue. Like I said, the algorithm doesn’t have any sense of morality. It can’t have that. It’s just an algorithm. What it has is a goal in mind. And a goal without limits will always be disastrous. Or I’m pretty convinced that it is.

So it trapped me in a place I don’t want to be: true crime TikTok. And whoo boy, that’s… That’s been a ride. I have so many questions. I have so many opinions, so many thoughts that somehow have to be held simultaneously despite how they may seem to contradict each other. And… (Sigh) Look, I’m sure everyone thinks their opinions matter, right? That’s, like, part of being a human being. But I promise you… 

Or I can’t promise you anything. I’ve never been able to promise people anything. Just like all the investigators couldn’t really promise me anything. Or the Gifted Duckling. Or the original queen from the Forum and anyone else who was there too. No one could really promise me anything. It was all lip service. 

But could you listen, please. Could you give me this much? You don’t have to believe me. Just listen.

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King Ezin kept his composure when the eyes of the court were on him, but in private, the fire burned within him. And to accommodate it and ensure it had the air it needed to thrive, his body was tearing itself apart to make the cracks needed for fuel to seep in. 

After all, he knew what his mother was. He knew how quickly she could turn on his daughter, her granddaughter, if the right moment presented itself. Not even if he had a son or if his sister had a son. Suppose a courtier won her favor with a boy in his household the right age to be married to the baby when the time came. It would be a peaceful usurpation of his daughter’s birthright. But the lack of bloodshed did not make it right. It did not make it less of an insult to his most cherished child. The queen mother would create problems, he knew, and that inevitability had stripped what little filial love he had for a woman who had birthed him, hovered over him, and criticized him but hardly ever nurtured or properly loved him in any way. 

And yet, his sister was a danger, was she not? She did not get her way and killed their mother to ensure a stay in her fate. Who was to say she would not do it again? 

He sighed and gripped the bridge of his nose as he sat alone in his chambers. He had to do something about his sister, he knew. But he hardly had the resolve for any sort of specifics. 

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It’s puzzling to me that there’s no immediately obvious terms for the clear subsections of the true crime world. Like, some divides are kind of obvious, right? There are fetishists with preferences either for the perpetrators or gorey details. That’s the sort of thing that every group or gathering of people will have to deal with in some form, and whatever answer there might be for it is not immediately obvious. But what I mean is beyond that. I mean going beyond this obvious subsection that frankly all the other ones seem to hate. Even when you shelve them, there are groups that, (sigh) well, don’t mesh together.

There are those researcher-type figures who genuinely mean well, right? They might not always do well, but they want to bring the stories of these horrors to light in a more academic sense. They are a bit more deadpan or dull, so they don’t always get the fame and success that others do, but that in and of itself doesn’t seem to bother them. They didn’t enter into this world to be famous. This is like a lifelong dissertation thing for them. They want to pick up this specific section of the world to see all the moving pieces because if we understand or pick apart those moving pieces, we can fix things or do better. What things are we fixing or doing better with? I don’t know. I don’t think they do either. They aren’t there yet. 

But they have an idealistic, better world in mind. Isn’t there something commendable about that? If you thought there was a way you could spare so many people from such horrors, wouldn’t you also run headlong into it too? Without stopping to realize what tunnel vision you might have. 

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Queen Evanora saw less of her husband in the wake of the queen mother’s death. If her ladies in waiting asked her about it, with or without genuine concern, she would dismiss their whispering with a firm wave of her hand. Grief was difficult, she would say, and there would be no questioning a king who had so recently become an orphan. Queen Evanora hardly took such a harsh word with her ladies. While they loved the comfort that came with that, it made moments like that so much more dire and warning so much more strict. They would bow their heads at her admonishment and refuse to say another word.

Queen Evanora did believe in what she was saying, of course. She knew her husband was suffering. She knew the details that no one else did, but she was powerless to act on them. There was no spell that could dispel grief or heal the holes torn into the soul when a loved one dies. The queen had looked. There was no price she wouldn’t have paid for such a thing. In their own way, she and Ezin did love each other, along a connection formed by their child. 

The infant would have to be given her own chambers soon, the queen thought sadly. The young toddler was growing out of her crib and out of the small daybed that had been brought into the queen’s chambers. This closeness was a loss she dreaded, but there was nothing to be done about it. Perhaps she would take a page from her husband’s book and harden her heart in the name of saving it. 

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On the other hand, and I hate this hand, but have you heard some of the more popular true crime podcasts that just… I don’t want to say that they make a joke of it all, but it sounds like they do. They aren’t laughing at the absurdity of a botched police investigation, which isn’t a great thing to do either, but it’s not the same sort of punch down as laughing at the victims and their circumstances is. Dismissing people’s inherent dignity and worth by virtue of their profession or laughing at their habit or hobbies or love. Worse yet, laughing at the in memoriam picture now attached to the case because it’s the one the police had, which is not so common, but even once is too many. 

All of that is inexcusable, frankly. And I think it’s weird that people try to excuse it, but then I remember that these aren’t always fringe shows. They caught their footing. So maybe the so-called defense of this content is a more personal defense than what is said. I think the critics of this content have noticed. I have noticed. It’s part of the problem really. 

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When the king finally came to her, it was late. The palace was asleep, but the king’s movements roused a few select servants. His most trusted guards and groomsmen walked with him as he approached the queen’s chambers. Her most senior ladies in waiting awakened, and though it seemed much too late for a marital visit, they let him into the queen’s chambers and cleared the way for him. 

Queen Evanora was sleeping when he entered the room. Their child was curled up on the bed with her, sleeping softly. They both looked so serene. The open curtains let the light of a full moon slip in and coat them both in a soft glow. King Ezin felt his heart swell with the reawakened love he had for them. Despite himself, he smiled. 

It was as if his joy shifted the world around him. At that moment, the queen stirred and opened her eyes. 

“Husband,” she whispered. 

“Wife,” he whispered back and sat on the bed beneath the baby.

True to form, the child kept sleeping, unbothered by the happenings or choices of her parents. She couldn’t be bothered with those things when her own needs required her attention. The king reached up and brushed her hair away from her face. The curls he once fawned over were gone. 

“I don’t know what to do about her,” he admitted to his wife. 

His words were unclear, but Queen Evanora knew what he meant. The child was still her responsibility, his mother was dead, and that left his sister only. 

He went on, “If I put her on trial for her crimes, that would only delegitimize us. We can’t afford any sort of dissent or doubt in a time like this.” He sighed. “The transition of power still hasn’t taken hold. It might not be set for years.” 

The queen looked up at him. “Perhaps you should let her be. Just for a bit. Let her have her way, have her adventures, and at the end, when you are both clear headed, the way will be clear.”

The young princess’s eyelids fluttered a bit, as if she were reminding her father what his greatest concern really was. 

The queen read his mind. “She won’t hurt her. She can’t.”

“You can’t know that.” 

The queen sat up. When she came to this kingdom to marry him, she never had any intention of letting her secrets slip. She had wanted no one to know what she was. The knowledge could bring about her ruin, and no title or status could really protect her. 

But the king could, and for the first time in their marriage, she thought he would. 

“I do know,” she said. And with a small kiss, she sealed her fate to his. 

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It’s easy to forget that these victims were real people. Maybe that’s sort of a defense mechanism. Because some people are still delicate and unchallenged by the world and couldn’t really handle the realization of just how brutal, random, and arbitrary it can really be. Maybe it’s not something we’re all equipped to handle. I certainly wouldn’t wish this knowledge on anyone because I know the sort of destruction that it can bring if the recipient is not equipped to handle it. I feel it. I feel it every single day, and no matter what it might bring, I just don’t know if I could wish such a thing on anyone. I just can’t. I’m sorry. 

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The princess had not requested an audience with her brother. She refused to do as much. There was nothing worthwhile that they could say to each other anymore, not if the king were so content to sign her life away like it was the tract of land that would be going with her to whichever man would be taking her hand. All the while, her niece would be pampered, given the life she had dreamed of without asking or putting in any attempt to earn it. She had just been born to the right mother, fallen out of the womb to the arms of the right father. It was all so arbitrary. It all meant nothing. It was all worth nothing. 

Anger rose up in her. She knew the feeling, knew that it would twist into a venom she would then wield against her enemies. She could wield it well, she knew. That was her power. And no one could take it from her. She caught herself staring at her hair brush while she thought this. It was a sturdy wood brush. With enough force, it could be broken into two and turned into some sort of weapon. She ran her hands over the paddle thinking about the details of such a plan. She thought about how she could do it. She wasn’t all that physically strong, but there were tricks that could compensate for one’s strength when that waivered. And, of course, there was Wane, lurking in the shadows in one place or another. He would come through and help her if the need was there. He always came through for her. 

She straightened up her back and smirked, but this delicate illusion shattered with a firm knock on the door and a servant calling out, “Your Grace, the King wishes to speak with you.”

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This was never going to be an exhaustive list of the True Crime subgroups. I don’t know if I can come up with that. But I tried to hit the biggest points. And the other most relevant one is, of course, the families of the victims. Because true crime usually deals with murder investigations, so the victims cannot speak for themselves, but obviously, whenever a victim can, their voice matters most. I want to say that’s not up for debate, but it’s not entirely relevant. Unfortunately. 

But when a victim dies, their family should have a right to that space. To speak the truth or story their loved one would perhaps want to. And it’s not justice, per say, but it’s a step in that direction. The record of events, the story itself, should be theirs to tell. But it usually isn't. And they’re most often left defending and begging the worst of the content creators to stop. They want the commoditization of their loved ones to stop, the sensationalism, the commercialization, the fetishization outright. All of that. They want it all to stop. And they shouldn’t have to beg for that. Obviously. 

But now I’m left wondering where do I fit in? Where do I go? Because maybe I shouldn’t be telling this story, even if I feel like I am affected by it because I am not them and never came to love them. Not like I should have anyway. Honestly, it’s just all so complicated. 

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