Photograph of Milo Yiannopoulos by @Kmeron via Wikipedia

Anyone who considers themselves to be a part of Gamergate, and claims to be dedicated to its ostensible fights for free speech and apolitical artistic expression, surely cannot possibly care about Milo Yiannopoulos, a high-profile supporter of the movement, who, prior to its emergence, penned articles that called gamers "dorky weirdos," "frustrated beta males," and worse.

On his Twitter account (now closed, with Yiannopoulos banned from using the platform by Twitter itself), the Breitbart editor described himself as the "most fabulous supervillain on the internet." As part of an in-house interview regarding the ban, which resulted when he was accused by Twitter of contributing to and encouraging online abuse of Ghostbusters actor Leslie Jones, Yiannopoulos said, "Like all acts of the totalitarian regressive left, this will blow up in their faces, netting me more adoring fans."

Gamergate sees no future in video games.

Gamergate's routine accusation is that people, nowadays, coerce video-game makers into representing and validating their own personal politics. People sympathetic to Gamergate's professed cause, who consider themselves part of the gaming industry's free thinkers, invulnerable to political or personal influence, surely wouldn't follow so nakedly a self-interested leader. Patently, the man is in this for himself.

But as illustrated by the "FreeMilo" and "JeSuisMilo" hashtags, which have appeared on Twitter following his ban, Gamergate has been nicely manipulated into gratifying the self-image, the personal perspective, of Milo Yiannopoulos. Gamergate argues politics ought to be kept away from popular culture. But here, in an act so rankly ignoble it demolishes the group's credibility, Gamergate and its sympathizers appropriate the language and memory of the Charlie Hebdo terrorist attacks, an atrocity that could not have been more political.

If it were true to its ideas, the rejection of politics, the reduction of personality in video games, Gamergate, as a collective, would not exist. It would recognize that gathering and uniting is an act of politics. It wouldn't band behind an individual, and certainly not one so unabashedly self-obsessed. A legitimate Gamergate would have no name.

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Anti-censorship and freedom of speech are two magnificent causes that Gamergate has used to smuggle through customs its squalid, base politics. It conflates people voicing their concerns with political dissent. It fails to separate governmental suppression of expression from the much less influential act of media critique. It's all censorship to them.

Such is the group's congenital hypocrisy: Gamergate repeatedly fails to acknowledge that campaigning for an absence of something from video games, be it feminism, quality representation of non-white characters, or other projects derogatorily described as "liberal", would also count as censorship—at least according to Gamergate's working definition of the term. Erroneously, Gamergate assumes that video-game makers are all like itself, that they could never truly want to make a game about, for example, women, and that if they are, it is because they have become a victim of something.

Gamergate claims to be for games and for game makers. At the same time, it campaigns to limit what both are allowed to do. And if it fails and a feminist game makes it to market—as it occasionally does and will continue to do, regardless of any opponents—Gamergate attempts to strip that game of its video-game status, variably claiming it is too short to be a game, too linear to be a game, too political to be a game or, most bluntly, not a true game at all. Using political language to campaign for apoliticism and censorial tactics to fight censorship, Gamergate claims to defend the game makers' right to free expression while simultaneously saying that what the game maker creates is illegitimate. In short, Gamergate is defensive not of other peoples' rights to express, but its own rights to consume. It is not for video games. Like Milo Yiannopolous, it is into video games exclusively for itself.

Gamergate will then tell people that to oppose it is to be opposed to video games themselves—either you sympathize with Gamergate's politics and goals, or you are not a true gamer. Ignoring the absurdly inflated value Gamergate places on the identity "gamer" and the ability of any mature person to enjoy games, movies, and art without relying on them for a sense of personal worth, it's rich of Gamergate to doubt anybody else's interest in, or love for, video games. Decreeing and attempting to limit what video games can or ought to be is pessimistic. It's the rough equivalent of telling one's child "you won't ever be president." Gamergate, rather than believing in or caring about video games as it claims to do, will tell video games they are not allowed to flourish, they must and will always remain the same. "Keeping politics out of games" almost always translates to "preventing video games from learning and maturing".

Related, on Motherboard: What Happens in an Internet Second

A person truly fascinated by video games will welcome difference and change—they will recognize these things as fundamental to both video games' long-term critical and commercial survival. As the true patriot is engaged with his entire, modern, contemporary society, rather than an idealized historical version of it, the true gamer is heartened by variety and possibility—video games' potential and breadth, rather than a status quo. It is unfortunate that people who claim to be interested in video games would purposefully limit what of video games they may imbibe.

When thinking about Gamergate, one is reminded of Thomas Edison, the American inventor who, believing motion pictures to be a folly and a fad, neglected to patent his own pioneering film camera, the Edison Kinetoscope. Gamergate sees no future in video games. Moreover, it attempts to prevent a future already on its way. A contradictory group, the actions of which serve as endorsements for everything it claims to stand against, Gamergate has sought a moratorium on change. Against overwhelming historical precedent—from movies to music to painting itself, all human expression has slowly matured—Milo Yiannapolous, @Nero, is as futile a figure as his namesake, the Roman emperor who, legends say, watched and played his violin while Rome burned to the ground.

While Yiannapolous and Gamergate have unjustly done harm to individuals over the past two years, they have spectated not over the destruction of video games, but renewal. The COO of Electronic Arts, Peter Moore, has acknowledged that, in the wake of Gamergate, the company has been paying more attention to diversity when employing staff. Hugely popular games as different as Life Is Strange and Call of Duty: Black Ops III have given players female characters to assume the roles of—the latter might be slightly tokenistic, but that it's an option at all is a positive product of a sea change occurring right now, across the games industry. Tools like Unity and Twine and platforms like Itch.io offer new voices the opportunity to create and be heard.

Gamergate's vicious and contradictory messages, sometimes dictated by people like Yiannapolous and sometimes not, have been met by game makers, game players, and an articulate yearning for betterment. As the hashtaggers fiddle, video games flourish.

Follow Ed Smith on Twitter.

Read more articles on video games on VICE here, and follow VICE Gaming on Twitter at @VICEGaming.

Photo courtesy of the author

Over the past year, I've been asked on countless occasions, "Hey, aren't you that girl who doesn't suck dick?" It happens at parties. While waiting to order a drink at a bar. On Tinder. Perhaps this shouldn't be surprising, since I told the internet that I don't give blowjobs last March, but I honestly didn't think it would be that big of a deal.

As it turns out, I was very wrong. In my piece, I wrote about how after years of men expecting me to suck their dicks without ever reciprocating, I was fed up. If men expect to get an orgasm out of a hookup—without having to give anything in return—then I would adopt that approach, too.

As much as I dislike forever being associated with blowjobs (or rather, the lack thereof), I'm glad it started a real conversation about the unfairness in the giving and receiving of pleasure during sex between heterosexual partners. Writing it was therapeutic for me, too. I'm less angry than I was then, and a lot happier with myself and how I approach sex. And while it's a little awkward when guys message me on Tinder and tell me they know who I am—the no blowjob girl—the upside is that at least they know where I stand and must agree with it on some level.

But here's the thing: Since I wrote that article, I have sucked dick. Please, legions of haters, don't take this as some sort of win. I vowed never to suck dick the same way I vowed never to eat an entire baguette in one sitting—deep down, I knew it would happen again eventually. These days, when I choose to give blowjobs, it's under particular circumstances—namely, that my partner has actually taken the time to eat me out, make me come, and respect my sexual needs. I give blowjobs when they're deserved. The problem is, they very rarely are.

If a man is making my life feel like a Weeknd song, I'm not going to suck his dick. If you don't text me back, you don't deserve a mouth on your dick. On the other hand, if a guy treats me like a woman whose needs he respects and goes down on me first, then sure, I'll consider going down on him. But getting to that place has always been the struggle.

Penetration is great, but no matter how long, curved, or fat your dick is, it's not going to happen for me. That's true for plenty of other women, too—it's clit or bust. In other words, if a guy and I have sex, but I don't suck his dick, he can still come. If we have sex and he doesn't eat me out, I can't.

A few months before I wrote that first article, I'd been seeing a guy who refused to go down on me every time I asked. His excuse? He only does that when he's in a committed relationship with a woman. At the same time, he made it clear that he fully expected me to go down on him. He didn't seem to understand—or care about—the obvious hypocrisy.

Since then, I've learned to put my foot down. I recently saw an old love interest of mine, who was visiting from out of town. After a little bit of making out, he asked me if I had a condom. I told him I'd like for him to go down on me first, to which he replied, "I'll do it after we have sex." I've been fed that line before, and it almost always results in the guy suddenly being "too tired" to eat me out. I told him I'd prefer he just do it then, which would actually benefit the penetrative sex for both of us, but he said no. So I left.

For far too long, it's been OK to shun cunnilingus. I hear men all the time who say, "Nah, not for me." But when a woman decided to act the same toward sucking dick, it became a controversy. If I had to become the spokeswoman for cunnilingus to start to change that, so be it.

Of course, I've also realized that shunning blowjobs is probably a little extreme, which is why I broke my own rule. I gave a blowjob for the first time in over a year after a guy I had seriously strong feelings for ate me out in such a top-notch way I almost considered buying him a medal. We weren't in a relationship, but it was going in that direction, and he was giving me the attention and respect I now know to require of my romantic partners. Giving him head felt different than the times I had reluctantly done so for other guys in the past. I enjoyed pleasing him, because of how much I knew he enjoyed pleasing me.

Blowjobs are a privilege, not a right. When men can start to appreciate what it takes to get women off, I'll suck dick without complaint. But until then, I'm going to keep complaining.

Follow Alison Stevenson on Twitter.

Still from the TV show Intervention. Photo via Facebook.

The TV series Intervention follows a predictable trajectory: bright-eyed kid suffers some sort of trauma, starts using, careens into full-blown addiction, goes through an intervention and is redeemed by treatment. Usually. But what does a real-life intervention look like?

Vancouver-based Linda Lane-Devlin is the founder of Interventions On Demand and has performed hundreds of interventions over the last 19 years. Part referee, part therapist, part crisis management—she helps people struggling with addiction get into treatment. She's also a former addict, a factor that has helped her immensely in guiding others away from the edge.

VICE: How'd you get into this field?
Linda Lane-Devlin: I'm in recovery myself for almost 20 years. I was a mother with children and a husband and everything—and I almost destroyed my whole life and everybody else's. When I first got clean I was very grateful. I got some really good opportunities and my life changed really quick.To make those changes and then learn about addiction and how I could help other people. I was working for the government as a manager of addiction services for five years. I got put in leadership roles where we could be a part of big decision making around treatment. Then I became clinical supervisor for treatment centres. And it's only the last five years that I've really wanted to go out on my own and be my own boss.

What do you do exactly?
Friends and family will usually identify the need for an intervention. They'll say; "we need some help with Joe, he's using and it's causing a lot of problems in our lives." Then you're trying to arrange and coordinate the best treatment for that person in getting them the help that they need. It's not necessarily treatment—it could be getting them to abstain from drugs and alcohol, or a harm reduction approach; to reduce use. But mostly, it's about getting them out of dodge for a bit, getting them to a place that's safe. It's about intervening at a point where it's getting really bad for them and others and there are usually a lot of negative consequences. You're trying to get in there and facilitate the conversation and get them the help that they need.

There are different models of intervention. The Johnson model is where you surprise the person—but you want them to be in a state where they can hear a conversation. You don't want them to be too out of it. Other models—like the Arise model—is where you invite the person. No intervention has ever been the same for me. Every one of them has different variables. Sometimes they'll go away and come back in a few weeks because the family has shut down the resources. The success of the intervention is about the work that you do with the family more so than it is the addicted person.

Linda Lane-Devlin. Photo via Addictive Designs

How similar is it to the show Intervention?
It is very similar. I find with the show they really focus on the drug use. But what's good about the show is that they show the love. That it's not an opportunity to make someone feel worse about what they're doing. They're trying to get them help.

Sometimes, the first thing clients will ask is 'am I on TV'? Some of them want to be. It's a grandiose thing—they want that attention so that they can be seen. Especially younger ones. The older adults don't want to be on TV at all. You have to really affirm that they're not.

People may watch the show and think, "I'll just do my own intervention." Do you think that's wise?
I think there's a huge danger in that. You want to have a facilitator of interventions because there is so much that can go wrong. If someone feels targeted already and there could be some aggression.

Are you seeing certain addictions more often?
You're hearing every day about all the overdose deaths with fentanyl and W-18. Those drugs are pretty scary. If they were around when I was using, I don't think I'd be alive. A lot of people are suffering withdrawals from these really strong opiates. Crystal meth is the one thing that really scares me for people. Some of the damages—you can't come back 100 percent. Whereas with alcohol and heroin, you can repair your body and health fairly quickly.

What was your most unusual intervention?
It's strange, but I've had an intervention where, as soon as the person's cat came into the room, they became open and loving. So I had to strategize on how to have the person's pet be a part of the process. Then they got to take the cat to treatment—that was the only way they would go.

What's been your most troubling case?
A young girl, working on the street, 17, on methadone and benzodiazepines, panhandling every day. Now, what she'll do is go out and look for fentanyl. She wants fentanyl because there's no more heroin really on the street. Even though she knows everybody's dying letters because they're so grateful that I've helped them save their life. That's the way they see it. When you have those situations, where you see them get healthy and completely change into different people—from the person who was bullying their parents and manipulating everyone to get their drugs—they come around and become fathers again, they become mothers again. You just see the amazing changes that people make when you take away the drugs and address the disease. It's a great feeling to see people overcome and recover.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Follow Tiffy Thompson on Twitter.

Illustration by Alex Jenkins

I have a nice ass. Guys like it, and I like it, too. But while it's led gaggles of daddies to harass me on Scruff, I've always had difficulty bottoming. When I mention this to other gays, they run through a checklist: Do I take my time? (Yes.) Do I use lube? (Yes.) Have I tried toys? (Totally.) Have I tried poppers?

Let's talk about poppers.

Poppers are a popular drug made of amyl nitrate. (Sometimes they contain butyl nitrate, or even cycloxehl, isopentyl, or isoamyl nitrate—intense chemicals.) They're great for anal sex, because one quick huff loosens your sphincter and makes you hard as a rock. They're still legal in the US, but can't be sold as a drug, so they're called "room deodorizer" or "VHS head cleaner" at sex stores. "Room deodorizer" is a hilariously misleading name, because poppers smell like dirty socks dipped in gasoline (which, I must admit, could be a kinky stench.) They can also, despite the relative rarity of side effects, be dangerous for you.

The use of poppers is associated with an increased risk of HIV infection—they can more than double one's chance of HIV infection in receptive anal sex, probably because they increase the flow of blood to anal tissues, which makes them more vulnerable to infection. Though evidence indicates they don't make one more likely to have unprotected sex, that's been my personal experience. With poppers, I seem to suddenly find myself inside someone  (or them inside me )  and it feels amazing, I'm a superstar, and I suddenly realize there's no protection between me and my new (or old) friend.

12 minutes into the high, I was bottoming with ease and enthusiasm. Unlike sex while drunk, where there are sometimes gaps in my memory and lapses in judgement, a weed lube high is measurable and sexy and never feels out of control.

Poppers are relatively safe—a 2007 study ranked them 19th out of 20 drugs in potential for dependency and physical harm. But last year, a study revealed the prevalence of solvents and other adulterants in contemporary poppers, concluding that "sometimes poppers are not poppers." They've even damaged eyesight in some users. The UK almost passed a national ban on poppers this March; Little Jimmy Johnson, emcee for the queer party "Sink the Pink" at East London's Bethnal Green Working Men's Club, told VICE the proposal "felt like an attack on gay sex and gay lives." But he appreciated that the bill opened a public conversation about gay sex and drugs. "All good," he said, "all long overdue."

"Poppers are going through a renaissance in London, especially in alternative gay clubbing," said Johnson. "When news of the bill started to circulate, a movement to reclaim and protect the joy of poppers definitely arose. A few parties sprang up in London — Les Poppeurs, Knickerbocker, Awful — where poppers are very much part of the brand. To many of a younger generation of queers, who perhaps just have a different relationships with drugs in general, poppers are seen as near-kitsch, like mirror balls or Sherbet Dip Dabs — silly, nostalgic."

As a new queer generation rediscovers and reevaluates their relationship with poppers, a potential alternative has arrived on the West Coast of the US: marijuana lube and suppositories. This new wave of products include BOND Sensual Oil, Foria Explore (the first commercially available marijuana suppository formulated for anal play,) and Ethos Extracts. Female users report fantastic results: multiple orgasms, intimate foreplay and feelings of empowerment. But what happens when marijuana is used to loosen things up in gay sex?

BOND is one of the first cannabis essential oils available in Washington State, which legalized recreational marijuana in 2014. It was created to amplify sexual pleasure in females, and is marketed toward vaginal use, but it's also safe to eat and, lucky me, put up your butt. (You'll want to use regular lube with it in gay sex—although it works as a lubricant in sex, it is a cannabis oil first and foremost, so may not reduce friction enough to facilitate gay anal sex, which requires tons of lube to work. Additionally, it's not recommended for use with latex condoms.)

Unlike other sex drugs, marijuana lubricants are exceptionally safe. BOND is a mixture of coconut and cannabis oil, and its risk of use is nil. Marijuana has always been a natural option as far as recreational drugs go, but its emergence as a sexual lubricant has transformed the age-old psychoactive plant into a tool that could transform the way we play.

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The first time I tried weed lube, I wanted to feel it without distraction.

The recommended dosage of BOND is between four and eight pumps. I applied it with a dildo—one pump on, I stuck it in, pulled it out, another pump, and so on, until I reached six pumps. (It smells great, by the way — like a cookie. Or maybe I just had the munchies.)

Ten minutes in and my entire body was high. My mouth was slightly dry but not irritatingly so. At 13 minutes, my cock was rock hard. The effect was pleasant ,  not a head high at all, which would typically generate anxiety and paranoia.  When I smoke, I find myself spiraling into deep thoughts about Joan Didion and my undying love of dolmas, but this weed lube high was hotter and more focused. At 21 minutes, all I wanted was to finger someone with the lube and then eat it out of them. At 26 minutes, I remembered I have an asshole, touched it, and quickly came. Still high. It was the best climax I'd had in months. At 30 minutes, I took a shower and felt the buzz fade.

The next night, I tried it with a partner. We applied it using my dildo, and both took around six pumps of BOND. It was electric. 12 minutes into the high, I was bottoming with ease and enthusiasm. Unlike sex while drunk, where there are sometimes gaps in my memory and lapses in judgement, a weed lube high is measurable and sexy and never feels out of control. Of course, it's still a mind-altering substance, but we were present and aware. We hadn't lost ourselves, and that's what made it so good. When my partner and I finally climaxed, it was euphoric.

The experience of using marijuana lube will be different for everyone, like any drug, and the sensations experienced will depend on where and how you use it. After a few uses, I found it to be a powerful tool that gives me confidence in sex and made bottoming extremely easy. Plus, I had fewer concerns about my health while using it—no poppers headaches or accidentally spilled chemicals, and less room for error in the heat of the moment, when it really counts. As Americans continue to explore the boundaries between drug use and sexuality, weed lube will redefine the way we think about cannabis and our bodies. And, in the end, it'll produce some wicked good sex, no matter where you're putting what.

Follow Chase Burns on Twitter.

So cute in emoji form, so humilating as an adult.

Obviously, shitting your pants is gross.

Sure, babies and old people do it all the time. Kids, too—especially in the case of illness, behavioural problems, or something called "encopresis" (do a quick Google search of "kids shitting their pants" and trust me, it's the best you'll ever feel about not being a parent). But as an adult, it's hard to think of anything that could be more embarrassing. Barring age and certain medical conditions, it's not something that I assumed many of us have to deal with—much less talk about (unless you're that dude from Trainspotting).

Yet when I started trawling for leads, this theme generated the largest volume of responses I've ever received for a single story in six years of journalism. People were selling out their spouses. Sending the names and numbers of their closest friends. One person offered to talk—but only over the phone, and on condition of complete anonymity (she asked to be referred to as "Rodman"). I got enough material for a six-part series—all of them from (and about) adults.

In stories of pants-shitting we see a little bit of ourselves; our frailties and all-too-human failures. Also, we're all vile, disgusting creatures, and we want to share that information. So in what will no doubt be viewed as my high watermark of online journalism for years to come, I've culled through those responses to bring you a sampling of some dark moments in human digestion.

PLAYING IT COOL

Police officers stand near the scene of where three police officers were killed on July 17, 2016, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. (Photo by Sean Gardner/Getty Images)

I've looked down the barrel of a cop's gun on three separate occasions, none of which involved crime. The most recent was in my own home, when I neglected to punch my alarm code in quickly enough upon entry. Was it completely necessary for the police officer to pin his knee in my back, gun drawn, as he went about determining my right to be there? Of course not. Was it racially motivated? Given the history of law enforcement in America, I find it hard to believe otherwise.

He and his partner went on to joke about how I could probably "use a drink" once everything was cleared up.

Black people have been talking about police brutality practically since America started—origins of police in this country can be traced to slave patrols in the 1700s. In recent decades, we've protested about it, marched about it, organized in our communities about it, written about it, sung about it, and developed art and comedy routines to soften its psychological blow. And still, we die.

The onslaught of social media has allowed for the chronicling of instances of blatant sadistic violence in a way that makes clearer than ever the viciousness by which cops often interact with us. "Hands up, don't shoot"—a slogan championed by the #BlackLivesMatter movement—has been the rallying cry around police brutality for the last two years in America.

And we still die.

So when police officers were killed and wounded in Baton Rogue this past weekend and in Dallas earlier this month, I think it's fair to say the carnage was experienced differently by those of us familiar with police savagery. Indeed, conciliatory calls in the media for the nation to "heal" and to "stop the violence" reek of racial condescension; from where I'm sitting, calls for restraint only seems to gain cultural currency when police are in the crosshairs.

I live in the San Francisco Bay Area, where we've seen killing after killing after killing after killing after killing of people of color by cops. This summer, the region has seen dozens of officers wrapped up in what arguably amounts to a massive child-rape scandal—one that caused Oakland PD to go through three different police chiefs in 8 days. We've also been casual observers of separate racist text message scandals involving officers in both the Oakland and San Fran police departments.

In fact, San Francisco's Blue Ribbon Panel on Transparency, Accountability, and Fairness in Law Enforcement recently examined the SFPD and delivered an exhaustive report on its practices. Authors found the department and its affiliated Police Officer's Association "functioned like a 'good old boys' club,' making it difficult to impose discipline," with a "'code of silence''—informal pressure for officers to "fall in line" and not report observed misconduct—makes it difficult to identify and respond to bias within the department."

All of which helps explain why it's hard for some of us to sympathize when violence goes down in the opposite direction. The media treats police officers like no others, often generating support for those who get caught beating and killing us by portraying the victims as thugs and the perpetrators as heroes. But we're not all thugs, and all cops aren't heroes. The blanket assignment of the latter term insults those officers who actually are heroic by placing them alongside cops who shoot unarmed kids.

See, being black around police is tricky in America. We don't feel the same sense of calm and inclusion around officers that many whites do. A lot of us will never call the police to help us, not because of some "don't snitch" code of ethics, but because we don't trust them to be in our business and don't want to be on the system's radar. When the lights flash behind us, we feel apprehension—even if we've done nothing wrong—and all because many of us can either recall firsthand negative experiences with cops, or know (knew?) someone who's had them.

Mario Woods didn't make it. After the man's disturbing videotaped killing at the hands of the SFPD went viral, it caused community outrage, a hunger strike, and was part of the impetus for the eventual resignation of the city's police chief. The man's autopsy revealed that he had suffered 20 gunshot wounds, including 6 in the back.

Some of us who don't trust cops adhere to the tenets of self-defense espoused by Malcolm X. That's why calls for gun control fall on deaf ears for some black folks. Why would we want to be unarmed in an environment where those who are trusted to "serve and protect us" may wantonly do the exact opposite? Especially when they are almost never charged with a crime, let alone found guilty?

Of course, we hear things like, "Why aren't you guys speaking out about black on black crime?" and "What about Chicago?" as though you can't be concerned with more than one issue at a time. We are. And every community has problems—we just don't need the police adding to ours.

No one life is more important than that of another. When we say "Black Lives Matter," it's because it needs to be said aloud in a country that repeatedly sends the message that they don't. Cynical retorts of "All Lives Matter" serve to undermine this basic fact.

When I read that the governor of Texas recently ordered his mansion to be lit blue in solidarity with fallen officers in that state, I wondered if governors around the nation might light their mansions brown in honor of the thousands of people of color killed by police. Maybe Jet Blue will offer free airfare for those wishing to attend funerals of black and brown victims of law enforcement wrongdoing, as they've done for police lost in the line of duty. And maybe traffic will be interrupted and the media will preempt programming to cover funerals of dead black men and women like they routinely do for fallen officers in cities across America.

The demonization of black victims and the lionization of law enforcement have to end for the rest of America to feel what we feel, and for conditions to change accordingly. Almost no one wants violence, on either side—nor should they. But as long as black lives are continually shown not to matter, some of us will continue to experience the tragedy of fallen officers with a bit less alacrity than our white friends.

PARIS is a hip-hop artist and activist from the Bay Area. He's owned several businesses that never went bankrupt. Follow him on Twitter.

John Bradley. All photos by the author

John Bradley plays Samwell "Sam" Tarly, one of the 33,250 main characters on HBO's monolithic TV phenomenon Game of Thrones, also known as "the only thing you care about in the world if you're honest with yourself." Game of Thrones—as you may already know—takes place in a gruesome, medieval fantasy world where everyone is always scheming and murdering everyone else. Sam, meanwhile, possesses a unique quality known as "niceness," and Bradley's role as the sweet, gooey center of a very cold, salty donut, has made him a breakout character, and a fan favorite.

Yesterday, HBO announced that season seven of Thrones is about to start shooting, but that fans won't be getting their show back until late next summer—meaning this will be a longer break than usual. In the meantime, if you need a fix of John Bradley's lovable face, you can always check out the new movie Traders.

But there's a catch: In Traders, Bradley plays a guy who is not at all nice. Traders is a thriller about a group of out-of-work finance bros who find themselves plunged into a sinister get-rich-quick scheme hatched by Bradley's character, Vernon. Vernon's scheme is called "trading," and it goes a little something like this: (1) Fight another guy—a willing participant—to the death. (2) Winner hides the body and takes all the other guy's money. (3) Repeat until rich, or until everyone is dead, whichever comes first.

Coming up with the scheme is only the beginning of Vernon's depravity.

For the guy who plays Sam, playing a villain seems to be a change of pace. But when we sat down for a chat with Bradley, he reminded us that there may just be evil lurking behind nice faces, and seemingly nice deeds. He even conceded that his own success as an actor could be viewed as a form of manipulation.

VICE: What's a nice guy like you doing in a mean movie role like this one?
John Bradley: The one thing that really attracted me to this part is the fact that as soon as they expressed interest in me for this role, I knew they were taking a very interesting approach to casting these parts. You get the good guy, and the bad guy. You look at myself and Killian and you see—one of us is 6'2" and in great shape and really good-looking and brooding. And then the other guy is considerably shorter than that and pudgy and looks like he's never done a day's work in his life—

Which guy is that?
That's me. So, you automatically assume that the imposing guy is the bad guy. He's the guy who's going to come up with all the bad ideas, he's the antagonist, he's going to affect the life of the good guy. He's going to come into the good guy's life and completely tear it apart. As soon as you get that Vernon is the bad guy, you understand that they're really playing around with those stereotypes.

As an actor, how did you craft a villain?
I've always likened Vernon to the Penguin in Batman. You expect him to be friendly and open. It's definitely a Freudian thing—round things you're drawn to. They seem comforting. And the thing about Vernon and the Penguin is they're both very soft and look very playful, but are incredibly sinister.

In the film, you've got a few scenes of actual hand-to-hand combat.
Yeah, that's right.

"Sam, over the course of the six seasons, has really revealed himself to be a master manipulator."

That's not new for you—there's tons on Game of Thrones. But to me, your fight scenes are more memorable than those involving other characters. Why is that?
Most of the characters I play, even when they're involved in fighting, they're being beaten up a lot of the time. People may think it's less of a skill than being active in a fight, but being hit and playing the part of being hit is really quite difficult. Because your body reacts in a certain way when you've been punched. You find it quite hard to synthesize that movement. A kind of explosive movement.

I actually think your fight scenes have more physicality even when you're on the offensive.
That's one thing that I really take pride in. I think that when I get beaten up—whether it be in Traders or Game of Thrones or anything else—it doesn't look graceful at all. It looks ugly, and violence is ugly. And I think a lot of the time, in things that you see onscreen—not things that you see onstage, but mainly on the screen—fighting looks incredibly balletical. It looks like it has no effort. And it's very graceful, and it flows. It looks like a dance number. It looks like tai-chi or something.

Kind of like fighting without violence?
I think violence isn't like that. Physical fights don't last 20 minutes. They're exhausting, and they take everything out of you. And one punch to the face, if it's right, will stop the fight. People don't tend to get 20 punches to the face and carry on fighting. That's something that happens in Traders: the fact that—for budget reasons—we couldn't film fights for a week at the time. We had to film most of them in one day, or sometimes two in one day, but I think that really helped, because they're short fights between two guys who don't fight. They've been driven to extreme violence by the desperation of their own circumstances. So it's not an examination of cinematic violence; it's some of the most realistic violence I've ever seen. And because of that, it's anti-violence.

Could Sam on Game of Thrones still take a dark turn?
Well, the capacity is absolutely there. Sam, over the course of the six seasons, has really revealed himself to be a master manipulator. Even back in season one, Jon is elected to be Commander Mormont's steward, and it's Sam that convinces him it's a good thing. He plays on Jon's emotions, and he uses his very persuasive language to get Jon to change his mind. He gets Jon to change his mind three or four times throughout the whole series.

If he's a "master" manipulator, the manipulation would have to have worked. Would you say it's worked?
The fact that Sam's at the Citadel at all is because throughout season five it was a major political campaign of manipulation. To get Jon into the Lord Commandancy at all—to manipulate him over the whole crowd of people who were voting—he gives a political speech. You think he's doing it for Jon's benefit, but he's not. He's absolutely doing it for his own benefit because if Jon is Lord Commander then Sam's able to get out. Every time that he manipulates Jon and convinces Jon that he's doing something for Jon's benefit, he's actually doing it for his own and Gilly's benefit. So in terms of Sam being selfish, he's incredibly selfish for him, Gilly, and baby Sam. And nobody else matters.

Is that really a bad thing?
I think he's got very little feeling for anybody else—the world has treated him very badly. He has contempt for his father. He has contempt for the wider world because he knows how cruel it is. What he's found is a nucleus, like an oasis of positivity and among it all, he cares fiercely about them. I don't think he cares —he even says it in season six: "I don't care about them. I do, but I don't really." So he has, within him, that kind of coldness and that detachment from the rest of the world. He just cares passionately about three or four people.

You have the exact same warm, friendly face as Sam and Vernon. Are you a manipulator too?
I wouldn't call what I do manipulation, but I think that to get what you want, no matter what it is, you've just got to use everything at your disposal. I don't think there's anything wrong with that until you start hurting people.

"Is it better to be nice or good? I think it's better to be good than nice."

So when is it wrong to use your niceness for your own benefit?
I was having this conversation with somebody else the other day—there's a huge difference between nice and good. Some people are nice. Somebody like Bob Geldof, for example, doesn't come across as a nice person, because he seems quite aggressive and surly, but he's a good person, because he does good things. Or you get somebody who looks nice, like Vernon, and he's actually very, very bad in his core. So here's the question: Is it better to be nice or good? And I think it's better to be good than nice.

Looking around online, it seems like you have a lot of gay male fans. Could that be a potential direction for your work in the future?
I think there's this kind of sub-category of people who like chubby men with beards, but I don't know what they're called. I should probably find out. I have heard about that, and I'm deeply flattered. But I think that, once again, to go back to "use whatever you've got," I'd never rule anything out. But as far as opportunities go—if you're talking about straight men such as me— in what capacities do you mean?

There are regular old theatrical films about "bears"—just about people hangin' out. Could you see yourself in something like that?
Absolutely. I'd never do something because it was a "bear" thing, but I'd do a good thing if it was a bear thing. I'd be doing it because it was good, not because it was a bear thing.

It could just be drama that appeals to people who like bears, but it's arguably six of one and half a dozen of the other. After all, Game of Thrones...
GoT appeals to people who like violence and boobs. But I've been having a conversation with people about this—Hannah Murray being one of them—and we're saying there must be a certain faction of the Game of Thrones fan base who really don't like our storyline—people who come to see people having their legs chopped off and getting disemboweled and huge, sweeping battles may not have time to see two broken, damaged characters falling in love.

You don't think your scenes are in danger of being back-burnered in season seven, do you?
I think that they know that enough people do like it to make its inclusion worthwhile. They know that not everybody's going to be delighted by everything. As long as that all kind of levels out, then everybody gets a kind of fulfilling experience. I think there are some who find Sam and Gilly's stories rather frustrating. But then there also some people who are sick of seeing boobs.

Traders is available to stream now on Amazon. Game of Thrones won't be back on HBO for over a year.

Follow Mike Pearl on Twitter.

Naloxone, pictured above, is a medicine that reverses an opioid overdose. Photo via Flickr user Governor Tom Wolf

Naloxone, the life-saving antidote for opiate overdose, has become a necessary tool in fighting Canada's opioid crisis at the healthcare level. However, restrictions on access to it vary from province to province. Most recently, Ontario became only the third Canadian province—behind Alberta and BC—to offer the medicine over the counter. Though this is a step in the right direction for Ontario, we don't know just how bad the opioid crisis is in the province due to the lack of data on overdoses and deaths being released in recent years.

Illustration by Jamie Loftus

Having a roommate has never been easy. But it's never been harder, either.

With their generational wealth in tatters, their quality of life markedly worse than prior generations, and as they stare down down one of the worst student-debt crises in history, growing up millennial means facing unusual living situations. Many 18- to 34-year-olds are moving back in with their parents, living in "pods," living in boxes inside other apartments, and, more than anything, living with one another at higher rates than ever. More so than their actual, you know, lovers.

But young people, in turn, have upended how they define their closest relationships. We've brought you stories about what happens when students hook up with flatmates—but what about what happens once we've left the bubble of university life? For the Tinder (and perhaps even the Seeking Arrangement) generation, the line between friend and lover has been blurred in unprecedented ways, and the roommate-with-benefits is on the rise. These stories lay out the case for—and against—the awkward, sweet, occasionally life-changing (and more often messy) realities of swapping spit with the same people with whom you split the cable bill.

Kathleen, 42

In the 90s, my roommate AJ and I used to get stoned constantly and be like, "Oh my God, we're stoned, let's fool around." That's how it started.

AJ and I were so close—we had the passwords to each other's bank accounts. And then he stabbed me in the back. He started dating a mutual friend who turned out to be psycho, and she ruined our friendship. She went through my mail and punctured my tires more than once.

AJ was this really great guy at first, until one of his friends said to him, "You're always the nice guy, you'll never get the girl." That's when he really started using me. It hurt. I would not recommend hooking up with your roommate. It gets too messy. In my case, it ruined everything we had. Now I'm happily single.

Heath, 25

I was a 19-year-old kid who'd never left Kentucky until I moved to Portland. I was trying to meet people and have a little fun, too. I'd been using Scruff to find friends.

I met Chris. Today, he's 51, and I'm 25. When we first hooked up, I wasn't experienced, so we just made out and went slow. At the time, he was partnered to a guy named Lance, and the three of us messed around together. Then they told me, "This home is your home too."

Eventually, Lance left him, and I ended up moving in with Chris. I've been living in his house in a separate room for almost five years. We don't have sex anymore—we stopped three years ago. But we have a lot in common. We both love watching rugby, and I play, too. We're really into hockey; our favorite team is the San Jose Sharks.

I'm transgender and transitioned freshman year of high school. I faced hardcore bullying. My hair was set on fire. I was punched in front of teachers who did nothing. Death threats galore. I needed a safe space, and Chris provided one. Chris just got married less than three months ago, and we're all looking for a house with a basement I can live in. He still wants me in his life. I grew up with a single mother, so he's like the dad I never had.

Today I have a great job, and I'm getting my bachelor's in data analysis. I've been dating, but my tastes have changed. I'm looking for someone my age. I guess as I've grown up things have become less about sex and more about finding someone to share a life with. I hope this doesn't sound ageist, but I'm looking for a peer now. I want someone to grow old with.

Lauren, 27

All I did while studying abroad in Oxford was read, write, and have sex.

My roommates spent their days drinking pints and eating fish and chips from the store next door. It was me, a girl, and four guys in a three-story flat. We didn't hang out with a lot of British people. It was a dark time.

My roommate Tommy had already slept with another girl in the house, but then he and I started having sex frequently. We would get super wasted and end up having the best sex I'd ever had. I ended up going to a polo match with Tommy outside London. We were all dressed up, and it was really fun. But then we got wasted, and I said some mean, horrible things. I called him a fucking psycho and made fun of his tattoos. I was being an asshole. I got escorted out of the polo match.

Doing it doggy style in a house with five other roommates was pretty fun. It also felt really raunchy because we were sneaking around. I've only seen him once since. He came to stay with me, and we had sex one more time, then I blocked him on everything. Now I have a male roommate, and we're like brothers. But I will never, ever sleep with a roommate again. It just gets so weird so fast. And then it makes everyone else in the apartment feel weird. I'm over it.

Scott, 50

I live in Denver and work in the travel industry. I've typically lived alone, but last year, I had a roommate for six months that I met on Grindr. We initially met for a hookup, and I wanted to date, but he wasn't interested. He needed a room, though, so I leased one to him for $400 a month. Once he moved in, we agreed the fooling around had to end.

He was from Pakistan, and he cooked delicious meals almost every day, which was certainly nice for me. After dinner, I would make us a pot of English tea, and we'd watch his Pakistani soap operas on YouTube. I couldn't understand a word, but I knew exactly what was going on. Then I would give him a foot massage, and he'd be off to bed. In some ways, we were like a married couple, without the sex. It was a sweet, nice relationship, but without sexual tension or any stress.

On the whole, I really enjoyed it, and I miss him today. Once he moved away, I went back to living alone. It was one of those rare, special experiences that occasionally come along in life. I gained a lovely friend—we still stay in touch and have warm memories of our time together.

On dating apps, it's really unlikely you'll find anyone reliable or dependable, someone you can really count on. But sometimes you'll meet someone special. So don't dismiss everyone.

Amanda, 28

I'm a bartender and live in Bushwick, Brooklyn. You can call me a hipster if you want, but I eschew the term. I do play keyboards and bass in two bands, though.

I lived in this DIY, punk-house kinda place for a year. It was rat-infested. A lot of DIY spaces in Bushwick have live-in lofts, like tiny cubbies. And that's where I met Nate. There were a lot of us living there. Nate and I were friends for many years, but never hooked up.

One night, very, very drunk, we left the main stage after a show and went to his bedroom, which was particularly vulnerable to rats because it was next to the kitchen. We were having sex right as the rats were coming out, and he has a rat phobia. He fuckin' lost his shit. Ran out the door with his pants around his ankles. And we never hooked up again.

Follow Conor Bezane on Twitter or his blog.

Attorney Dan Tandon and Jon David Guerrero, whose face is obscured at the instruction of a judge, at Guerrero's arraignment hearing this week. Photo by John Gibbons/San Diego Union-Tribune

On Tuesday afternoon, reporters packed a San Diego courtroom for the arraignment of Jon David Guerrero, the man charged with brutally attacking five homeless people in San Diego this month, killing three and seriously injuring at least two others.

Following his arrest last week, San Diego Police Chief Shelly Zimmerman told reporters she was confident Guerrero was the man responsible for "these evil acts." But in court, Guerrero, 39, didn't enter a plea. His attorney, deputy public defender Dan Tandon, asked that the arraignment be delayed for two weeks—a request the judge granted.

"San Diego deserves to know the truth and the whole story in this case," Tandon told reporters. "And this story begins many years before July 3—years before the first loss of life in this case."

Tandon declined to elaborate.

On July 3, police allege that Guerrero killed Angelo De Nardo, a 53-year-old homeless man, and set his body on fire under a freeway overpass in San Diego's Bay Park neighborhood. The same week, 41-year-old Shawn Longley was found dead at a park from blunt-force trauma to his upper torso and 23-year-old Dionicio Derek Vahidy died after he was found with severe wounds on his upper body and a burning towel on his head. Guerrero was charged for both murders.

Two other victims survived: an unidentified homeless man whose attack under a freeway overpass last Friday morning led to Guerrero's arrest, and 61-year-old Manuel Mason, who was found in the city's Midway District with wounds to his upper body. Leean Rasko, a longtime friend of Mason's who's visited him multiple times in the hospital, told VICE the attack left Mason permanently blind. Rasko described Mason as a gruff but intelligent man who spoke several languages and always made sure she was safe when she walked to a nearby trolley stop to get to work.

The attacks, which were scattered around the city, have unnerved San Diego's homeless community. Despite Guerrero's arrest, more than half a dozen homeless people VICE talked to this week remained wary.

Ray, who asked to be identified only by his first name, said he worried that "someone's going to start copying" the killer. He was walking with his wife Beth along 17th Street in downtown San Diego's East Village neighborhood, a gritty area that the homeless refer to as "the bottoms" due to its concentrated street population. A man who was packing up his tent across the street said he'd heard someone was going around with a baseball bat, targeting homeless people.

All but one of the attacks happened in the parts of the city where homeless folks go to get away from the drugs, violence, and police sweeps common to the bottoms. Dionicio Vahidy, for instance, was found on a tree-lined path leading to idyllic Pantoja Park, near the San Diego Bay. On Monday morning, several homeless people lingered in the park, sitting on benches or in the shade under a tree. Debra, who declined to give her last name, described the park as the "safest place to be," despite what happened to Vahidy.

A few benches down, though, Frank Pulicchio disagreed. He said he normally sleeps in or near the park with his girlfriend, but was so shaken by the attacks, he decided to put her up in a motel for a few days.

"It's not been good," he said, choking up a bit.

San Diego's Pantoja Park, where many homeless people go to escape the the drugs, violence, and police sweeps in other parts of the city. Photo by the author

There were seven homeless deaths classified as homicides in 2015, according to the San Diego County medical examiner. That's far fewer than the deaths from heart disease or overdoses, but the recent attacks have underscored the city's lack of emergency resources for its large homeless population. Roughly 2,700 people sleep on the city's streets each night, according to a recent report by the San Diego Regional Task Force on the Homeless, and shelter beds are always filled. Before Guerrero's arrest, the best advice police and service providers could give folks was to stick together and stay in well-lit places.

And that's what Ray and Beth did—until, Ray said, "a bunch of cops would show up and tell us to leave."

VICE spoke to people who also said the recent attacks have highlighted tension between the homeless and police, especially in East Village, where the city has been conducting weekly encampment sweeps.

Chris Nafis, a pastor at the Living Nazarene Church in East Village, told VICE anxiety still lingers among the homeless folks who attend his services, exacerbated by an overall increase in violence and crime in the area. He described a gang fight that broke out the other night near the church, in front of a homeless encampment.

"The violence could easily turn toward them and they have nowhere to go," he said. "If the police do show up, they use collective punishment and everybody's sort of afraid they're going to be on the wrong end of the police."

Guerrero, who has been charged with three counts of murder and two counts of premeditated attempted murder, is currently being held without bail on the sixth floor of San Diego's Central Jail, where inmates with mental illness are housed. Court records show he has a long criminal history with multiple convictions for burglary and grand theft. In 2009, he pleaded guilty to pushing a homeless woman off her bike and stealing it, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune.

Because the case involved multiple murders, Deputy District Attorney Makenzie Harvey said prosecutors could seek the death penalty.

Follow Kelly Davis on Twitter.

Love letters are a strange thing. Once read, they lose their original purpose and become keepsakes—a piece of paper filled with emotions that are often ephemeral. Which is why I've always felt conflicted about whether it's appropriate to keep a love letter once a relationship has ended. Should I scrunch it up and chuck it in the trash, or treasure it in a box under my bed? What if my new partner found one—would they think I still have feelings for the person who wrote it?

To answer this, I decided to reach out to some of my friends and ask if they would share with me love letters they have received or have written in the past. I wanted to find out why each of them has saved the letters and what purpose they serve now.

Editor's note: The transcripts of some of the letters have been slightly edited for clarity.

Alexandra, 23

Good morning my beautiful girl,
I am so happy to have found you Alex—you make me feel breathless with butterflies. And although it has only been a short while, I know we'll be in it for the long run.
This five-week gap will be hard (as you know), but you'll have an amazing time and we'll be back together in no time. I'll be waiting for you baby.
Try and keep your chin up, baby girl. I love you so dearly that it shocks me sometimes. I always feel at home, when I'm with you and I love it. You are my everything baby and I don't want you to forget it!
All my love,
Freya
Aka Princess x

VICE: How long have you and Freya been together?
Alexandra: We've been together for a year.

Can you tell me a bit about your relationship?
I'm her first girlfriend and we're a long-distance couple. She lives in Bedford , while I'm in Manchester. We met through a Facebook group in early June 2015 and were together by the end of the month.

How come you had to be apart for five weeks?
I went traveling to Asia for five weeks in August 2015. She wanted to write me a letter as a keepsake for whilst I was away.

Do these letters help when you're not together?
Definitely. Just seeing her handwriting and realizing she took the time to write to me, reminds me that she's still there and waiting.

Katie, 24

VICE: What's the letter written on?
Katie: If I remember correctly, we'd just got back from a festival after a really messy, trippy weekend and the only bit of paper he could probably find was a left over drugs wrap.

Can you tell me a bit about the relationship?
He's been my best friend since I was 16 and he was 18. He still is my best friend. We grew up together and shared lots of memorable experiences. When I was around 21 something weird happened; I think he went to a festival and came back and realized he "loved me"—or something like that. We kind of had a month or two of fooling around with each other and then it was like waking up from a dream like, "What are we doing?"

Did the letter bring you two together?
I remember feeling more like the letter meant it was a good time to have some space. We chilled for a while and then carried on being friends again.

Why do you still have it?
I keep a lot of things, mainly meaningful things, especially from times I want to remember—such as festival wristbands, gig tickets, train tickets, and definitely letters. This note was like something out of a movie because he disappeared in the morning after returning from a festival, and I woke up alone and found it under my pillow.

NICOLE, 24

VICE: What's the significance of pugs in this case?
Nicole: Me and Gaz had always dreamt of having a pug called Albert; named after the Nick Cave song 'Albert Goes West.' We'd probably send each other about five pictures of pugs every day and it became an unhealthy obsession. I now have Albert and he's amazing.

How was Paris?
Paris was incredible. It was our first trip together and it was for Gaz's 27th birthday. A particular highlight was the catacombs; Everyone joked that we were the goth couple of Manchester so we fit right in there.

Can you tell me a bit about your relationship?
We had been together since 2013. The classic "love at first sight" story that makes people roll their eyes. We spent every waking, non-working hour together, and we were supposed to move in together last year. At that time we'd been together for two amazingly happy years. Unfortunately though, Gaz died very suddenly and unexpectedly in June of last year.

Does it hurt to look back at these letters?
When I first read these letters after Gaz died, it hurt so much that I left them untouched for six months. I'm now happy to look back at them and remember what an amazing relationship we had. Maybe one day I'll have that kind of relationship again, but for now I consider myself lucky that I had the chance to feel that way about someone. Some people never experience such love. As unfair as it is to have your soulmate taken away at the prime of both of your lives, we had an incredible two years together and I wouldn't change it for the world.

LENA, 24 *

Dear _,
I'm sitting in a chair in my room in Fabas yet again, thinking about you—how I miss looking at your beautiful face and how I wish you were with me, for the millionth time. The weather here is great as usual—blue skies, bit of wind—which is great for me and you; It's hot for me, and I'm getting a tan for you!
I've been doing quite a bit of work with my grandpa, building a new terrace to sit on and also lifting loads of huge rocks to make a new level bit of ground next to it—which is bloody tiring! Also, Harry, Finn, Callum, Miles and I have been playing loads of footy—and I bet everyone else at Fabas are so thankful that there is a river, because let's just say Fabas wouldn't smell too good!
I've only just realized recently how much art I need to do here, because I've been a bit behind in class. It's sooo time-consuming, so I've been doing a lot of that too. Your paints that you gave me, have been great and I've used them quite a lot.
The day before yesterday, we went to the plunge pool, which you've heard about in all my other letters, and that was so much fun. Every time I go, it still amazes me how beautiful the place where it is is WHEN (not if) I take you to Fabas,we are definitely going there!
Recently, I've been thinking of you actually being here with me, and I want it to happen more and more! I was thinking that the best time to bring you down here would be after we finish our exams because that's the time of year when this place is most breath taking. However, I need to ask my grandparents first because I'm not sure if they'll allow me to come down here with a girlfriend or not (but they should allow me to).
I've been playing music quite a bit with Callum (on the flute), which has been good, but I was also thinking how I'd love to play with you (if you want me to) on your stage thingy—I really think you should do it—it would be fun, and your songs are great! I'm so proud to have such an amazing musician for a girlfriend.
We are going camping tonight which will be fun, and we'll be cooking pancakes on an open fire which I cannot wait for! (That should be the highlight of it.) This place is great for camping, so when you come down here, we will go at least for one night (if you're up to it).
Being here with my family is obviously really good fun, yet as much as I love being with them, I'd trade it in for being with you. I can't wait to see you—being with you is like a breath of fresh air and everyday I don't have that makes me want it even more, I miss you so much and before you think 'No he doesn't,' I DO!!!
I can't wait to see you, I'm sure I'll be amazed by your beauty yet again when I see you, because I forget your face sometimes. I love you more than anything and have a great summer (what you have left of it)—have fun!
Lots and lots of love,
your lucky boyfriend,
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

VICE: How old were you when you received this letter?
Lena: A thing that used to annoy me at the time but I'm grateful for now is that he would date everything—so I know that I was 15 when I got this. And as it was in July, I would have been in Ireland for the summer. No phones and no internet meant we used to send each other letters.

Can you tell me a little about your relationship? How long were you together for?
We were childhood sweethearts. We dated on and off throughout almost the whole of secondary school—so for about six years from the age of 13 to about 19. We came from very different families which sometimes became a problem. His bleached middle class upbringing meant that he didn't know what a tea-stained cup looked like, which upset my mother quite badly once. We watched 'White Palace' once together and it was uncomfortably close to the bone. But we were totally mad about each other. It was very romantic.

Did he ever take you to Fabas?
Yes, I got to visit his family's collection of houses in France. It was a great holiday but I used to hate it when he went because he'd be in France, I'd be in Ireland, and the summers are so long when you're younger.

And did you guys ever perform together?
We did not. I was in a band at school and at one point, when we weren't going out, I briefly dated the guitarist so that kind of put a sour note to the idea of us playing together. We were in a soul band together at school but we only performed once, and I got too drunk trying to ward off nerves and he was very embarrassed of me slurring 'Freddie's Dead' down the mic. He was often embarrassed of me.

Finally, how come you kept these letters for so long?
For a long time they meant a lot to me because I was pretty mad about him. I think everyone remembers their first proper boyfriend. Though his letters tended to be a bit wooden—he was the classic English perpetual-pole-up-the-ass prude in public—he was a very funny and sweet guy, and I was a happy teenager with him.

Ben, 24*

VICE: What was the reason you wrote this note?
Ben: I wrote this letter because my boyfriend and I are apart almost all of the time, which is difficult. Writing love notes is comforting to me and reminds me of all the things I love so much about my relationship. It makes him feel good too.

Can you tell me a bit about your relationship?
I met my boyfriend in 2010 while at college in Florida, where both our families are from. We dated off and on for three years but it just never fully fell into place. In 2015, we became serious but it's been incredibly hard because our relationship has been over such long distances. I have been studying in London and he is in California. We get along great and this time around it finally feels like it's the right moment, so I've switched my studies to an online course and will be moving close to him so our relationship can take a new form.

Does he write to you too?
He does, but not in so many words. I get cards and short notes—only a few sentences in each, but they're still just as special to me.

Do the letters help with not seeing each other often?
They do; they remind us of our time together. I typically take pictures of letters I've written to him and of the cards he's given to me so I can remind myself of how it feels when we actually get to spend time together. They remind me how lucky I am to have this person waiting for me at home.

DIARMUID, 25

Who was the person you wrote this poem for?
Diarmuid: For a Bulgarian girl from Sofia, also called Sofia.

How come you decided to write a poem, instead of a more traditional letter?
I wrote it without planning to. I often write down whatever comes into my head. I was spending a lot of time drinking alone in dive bars at the time, and writing this helped me pass the time.

Can you tell me a bit about that relationship?
We met in Spain and she had a boyfriend back home. We spent every evening walking around the city together, talking into the early hours. Then she went home. I tried to convince her to come back.

Did it work?
Alas, it did not. I actually spoke to her yesterday, asking for her thoughts on the relationship, and she said "It never officially ended" but I guess it never officially started either.

Tanya, 20*

VICE: Can you tell me a bit about your relationship?
Tanya: We met through a friend of a friend. He was six years older than me but didn't seem it most of the time. He was my first sweetheart I guess—I adored him. Whenever he was home we would go on trips and days out but there was always a lot of strain on our relationship as he was in the military.

What's it like, to be with someone in the military?
It's hard. I enjoyed it because I don't like being with someone 24/7, so it was good to have that time apart but after a couple of weeks, I would really miss him. However, the military changes people; towards the end he became paranoid about who I was hanging out with. I had a lot of guy friends. But I'd have an incredible sense of pride when I'd see him at ceremonies and stuff.

Did he propose?
He didn't. We broke up before then. He said he would propose after a year but we lasted nine months.

What happened in the end?
I got tired of the pressure and paranoia. I'm a bit of a commitment-phobe anyway. But he also made it tough towards the end. The breakup was a sigh of relief. I saw him a few months ago actually and he blamed the breakup on the distance and my age at the time. I left it at that to save arguments, I guess.

Petra, 41*

Hi baby girl!
How's the assignment coming along? Nearly finished? I had a maths assignment given to me and it looks impossible but I'll give it a good go, and do my best. Anyway, enough of work!
So you're going to get a buzz cut! Don't have it too short, because your hair is the most beautiful I've ever seen. You're probably right in having a change though, especially if your hair's been the same all your life. You'll still look gorgeous anyway, and I can't wait to see that gorgeous face of yours again on Saturday. I shall get the 8.35AM train probably, so I should see you around 10.15AM. I will buy the ticket tomorrow anyway.
I've got to go to bed soon, I wish I was with you though. I could really do with making a nest with you and just have you next to me. The best thing is waking up with you (as long as it's not a fire alarm that wakes us!). I love feeling your silky body in my arms. I need you, now and for the rest of time. I will always be here for you, and if you ever feel lonely, just think that in the near future we will be husband and wife and you will never need to feel lonely again. Anyway, I've got to go now. Just one more thing to say; I LOVE YOU!Your man,
X x x x x x

VICE: So, did you become husband and wife?
Petra: Yes, we did! We've now been married for 19 years.

Can you tell me a bit about your relationship?
We met when we were about twelve years old. We both used to go to church and I thought he was a complete weirdo. Many years later we ended up in sixth form together and became inseparable—although at this point still only as friends.

On the last day of our A-levels, he was hit by a car and almost killed. In the same accident our friend was killed. Everything changed in my mind. I realized he was more than just a friend—that there was no way I could not have him in my life.

How does it feel to look back on love letters from such an early time in your relationship?
It was so bizarre to look back at these letters. Some of them made me blush! But it is so wonderful to be able to rediscover how much we felt for each other and how pure our love was—untouched by the rigors of adult life.

Oh yeah, and how did your assignment go?
Oh my word... I don't remember; it probably went well. I was a bit of a swot .

* Names have been changed to protect the subjects' identity.

Editor's Note: You might know Bun B as the Texas-based rapper, professor, and activist who's one half of the legendary Houston duo UGK. He's also VICE's political correspondent, reporting on the ground from the campaign trail of the strangest presidential election in recent memory.

My friends and my family think I'm crazy. Why the hell would I going to Cleveland, Ohio for the 2016 Republican National Convention? I mean let's keep it 100—there's already over 15,000 journalists there from all over the world, several news outlets are offering around-the-clock coverage, and protests are being planned throughout the city. Who needs that drama? Plus, it's summertime—I could be chilling by the water sipping on a mojito or some fly shit like that.

But then again, why the fuck would I not go? We're in an extremely pivotal moment in our country's history. People in America are being senselessly killed in the streets by police officers. Police officers are being senselessly killed in the streets. The country is more visibly divided than ever, with extremists on both sides of the political spectrum pushing this country closer and closer to its boiling point. Donald Trump calls for unity, and at the same time talks about building literal and figurative walls, or denying people entry in based on their religious beliefs. So I'm gonna sit on my ass at one of the most important times of my life and do nothing? Bruh. You already know. Cleveland here I come.

Photo by Jason Bergman

When I first hit the campaign trail, I thought it would be a few weeks of fun. Honestly, I thought we'd be in a different place right now. I thought we'd be seeing the usual suspects with the same old spiel. But as we all know, this election season has turned out to be anything but usual. The least likely candidate in the Republican primaries has ascended to the top of the pile, and his own party is still reeling from the shock of it all. Now, I'm determined to see it all the way through.

My first stop is an interview with the supergroup Prophets of Rage. This collective—composed of members of Public Enemy, Cypress Hill, and Rage Against the Machine—has played a few one-off shows, but on Tuesday, they're launching their nationwide tour just down the road from the Republican National Convention, at Cleveland's Agora Theater and Ballroom. Tom Morello, of Rage Against Machine, tells me the message of the new group is simple: "The world ain't gonna change itself. That's up to you."

I ask Chuck D, front man for the legendary group Public Enemy, what's it like to be back on the front lines. "We never left the front line. As musicians we have to be aware to point the people on the front line in the right direction. It's a serious time for some serious action," he tells me. "Tom Morello, guitarist for Rage Against the Machine and a well-known activist, describes Prophets of Rage as an 'elite task fore of revolutionary musicians.'"

Photo by Jessica Lehrman

D tells me that Cypress and Public Enemy have heavily influenced the hip-hop side of Rage Against Machine—Cypress Hill rapper B-Real actually appears in the band's first-ever video and the group has toured with Chuck D before. "When we wanted to bring these Rage Against the Machine songs, which were made for days like today, performing in front of the RNC, we wanted to be able to perform those songs with authentic voices," he says. "We wanted to be able to Rage-ify these records by Public Enemy and Cypress Hill to make one solid fist of hip-hop and rock 'n' roll power."

B-Real, a hip-hop legend, adds that he'd had the chance to work with Rage before, but it never materialized. "So when this came up, especially with the state of the world as it is, I thought it would be a great opportunity to say something different and use the platform the right way with artists I respect as musicians and as men for what they stand for," he says.

Photo by Jessica Lehrman

After the interview, we head downtown, closer to where the convention and surrounding fanfare are going down. As we arrive, it's super quiet—daily life in Cleveland has completely halted for this circus. I wasn't expecting The Purge or anything, but the media would have people believe that another Civil War was about to happen here. A local photographer tells me that the city is a ghost town this week because Cleveland residents don't want anything to do with the Republican National Convention. As far as I can tell, he's right—almost everyone who walks by has some kind of credentials hanging around their neck.

I start in one of the public squares, where I see three times as many photographers than there are people to shoot. It's almost like an outdoor press pit. Everyone is standing around looking for open-carry protesters or black activists to take pictures of, but instead all they find are Elect Jesus water bottles and food trucks. There's a very weird level of anxiety that comes from people who came to be in the shit and can't find it to save their lives.

All of the sudden a guy shows up in a T-shirt with "Tamir Rice Only" written in ink on the front. He is screaming into a megaphone that barely works, talking about being shot by a "pig," by which he means a dirty cop. Shouting into the megaphone. he claims that 85 percent of police departments have pigs in them. His speech is passionate, but slightly incoherent—people in the square are interested, but it's hard to keep up.

Still, he has 50 cameras filming him now as if he were holding an official press conference, only because he is the loudest voice in the park, standing at the highest point. It's amazing. It's sort of a metaphor for the political climate right now—the loudest voice wins.

Photo by Jessica Lehrman

About 30 feet away, a group with a working megaphone starts shouting about how they get pulled over all the time and haven't been shot yet. The guy speaking in the mouthpiece has a shirt on that says "Allah is Satan." Another one has a sign that says something about how every real Muslim is a jihadist. I ask a police officer standing nearby if he's conflicted about protecting those who spew such an unbelievable amount of hate. He gives me a look that lets me know it's not the first time he's had to do it and won't be the last.

Across the square, I see a Muslim man and a Jewish man standing together with semi-automatic weapons across their bodies. I take another loop around, and find a guy holding a sign that says "Wanna Talk to a Racist?"

Photo by Jessica Lehrman

Then Alex Jones, the conspiratorial mastermind who runs InfoWars, shows up, marching into the square surrounded by a platoon of tight shirt-wearing goons. He pulls out his megaphone and starts calling people communists and terrorists. He tells people that they better get ready to get in line. And then somebody punches him. It's magnificent.

Suddenly, there are more than 100 cops in the square. The "Allah is Satan" guy is back, looking for attention and getting it. A group of Occupy protesters have arrived as well. What was a quiet empty public square is now on the brink of chaos. The police de-escalation process is working though, keeping the crowds at bay without worsening the situation. In a sea of "Fuck the Police" signs, they're showing some restraint—even when I have my own heated moment.

Photo by Jessica Lehrman

Eventually, I head to the Quicken Loans Arena, passing through several security checkpoints before I finally make it inside. I spot Eric Andre in line with a slice of pizza hanging in front of him on a string.

The setup in the stadium is impressive—like the best looking festival buildout with the worst lineup in history. It's interesting to see how different states represent themselves:The Guam delegation with their ceremonial leis, the Kansas delegation decked out in Royals blue, a Louisiana delegate with a Mardi Gras hat on—and of course, the Texas delegation in all their ten-gallon glory. We hit the floor just as the roll call vote to nominate the presidential candidate is about to start.

Photo by Jason Bergman

Reince Priebus, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, officially starts the convention. He's followed by House Speaker Paul Ryan, who's the official head of the convention, and reminds the delegates of the rules of nominations and nomination speeches. Then Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama, one of the first high-profile backers of Trump, officially nominates his candidate, and the roll call commences, state by state, in alphabetical order. By the time they get to Arkansas, I pretty much get the gist.

I have a couple of drinks while I wait for Texas, my home-state delegation, to be called. Finally, Dan Patrick, the lieutenant governor and ranking crazy racist asshole, declares that Republicans from great state of Texas—a state where Democrats are few and far between, and where every Texan has the back of every cop—would throw their support behind Trump, despite Senator Ted Cruz's win in the state's primary. It's a bit of a shocker, but I'm over this now. It's time to bounce.

Photo by Jessica Lehrman

Later, I head back to the Agora Theater to catch the Prophets of Rage performance. To say they killed it is an understatement. I haven't been in a mosh pit since high school but on Tuesday night, I couldn't deny myself: Me and my torn meniscus jumped my 43-year-old ass into the pit and went for it.

The release was liberating—absolutely cathartic. People of all colors and religious backgrounds pushing the shit out of each other for 90 minutes. Song starts. Music rises. The drop. Chaos ensues. Elbows fly. Heads butt. Half punches fly. Bodies slam into each other from random angles. How we don't break toes and ankles on every jump defies logic. The music ends. Wounds are nursed. People fight to catch their breath. Then we high five or hug that shit and go right back at it again.

Photo by Jessica Lehrman

It could be the perfect end to my evening. But it's not. Dripping with sweat, I throw my shirt and cap away, grab a POR shirt freshly copped from the merch booth, and keep moving. My last stop is a party thrown by a group called LGBTrump, which is perhaps unexpected, but I'm not surprised by anything at this point.

Outside, I hear some young Republicans nearby talking about a run in with the "BLM guys." Stand around any spot for five minutes in Cleveland this week, and you're bound to hear a story about Black Lives Matter—it seems like it's a badge of honor among Republicans here to be called a racist by someone in the movement. Soon, a group of young protesters walk up with a huge banner that says "Queers Against Racism!" I watch them for a few minutes, then realize it's almost midnight, and I've got much bigger fish to fry tomorrow. Time to call it a night.

Follow Bun B on Twitter.

Richard Aoki at the Asian American Political Alliance's support for the Free Huey campaign, ca. 1968. Looking on at left is Richard's friend Douglas Daniels. Reprinted from Howard L. Bingham, 'Black Panthers' 1968

In this country so many more things go to the person who doesn't acknowledge that there's a problem. We have taken to calling this "privilege." The ability to drive without fear of being pulled over for your skin color. The ability for the police killings of black men not to affect you. The ability to see a cop car without preparing for how to avoid being killed, for what might happen to your family if there is no accountability or justice.

Asian Americans have been taught to keep our heads down. That this is the way to succeed. We are taught this by white supremacy. Though many think of "submissiveness" as cultural, Asians have long histories of protest and demonstration. The nonviolent independence movement in India has been a model for similar independence movements worldwide. Protests in South Korea, where I was born, are frequent and frequently include tens of thousands of people. Author Frank Chin once called Asian Americans the "one success of white supremacy," as we have taken on the values of our oppression as values for success.

Asian Americans, the popular conception goes, do not protest. Or: do not "riot." Just as white college kids who burn cars do not "riot"; they "celebrate." In an April interview with NPR , writer Jay Caspian Kang (now a correspondent at VICE News) explained, "It's rare to see Asian Americans protest anything... We don't quite have a language of protest. There's no real written history of Asian American protest in the United States." Sometimes Asian Americans use this stereotype like a privilege. Despite a history of labor strikes (like the 1965 Delano Grape Strike) and protests (like the ones surrounding the Vincent Chin case in the 1980s), too often we ignore the situation at hand.

There is a clear advantage to ignoring a problem—someone else deals with it. Meanwhile you have more time and emotional energy to use toward your individual goals.

I used to organize a seminar series on inequality at the Harvard Kennedy School, and one of the talks that most stuck with me was by a scholar researching " priming," how just writing about a situation where you feel powerful then has quantifiable benefits on the job market.

Imagine you are faced with marginalization and oppression every day. This "primes" you for disempowerment. When someone calls you a chink on the bus, you are primed to fail your job interview. So what do you do? Do you say nothing and try to forget as quickly as possible, not let it affect you? Do you frame your marginalization as empowerment—if I put my head down I will show that I am not a threat but an asset?

How is it possible to convince people to confront social inequalities, to actively acknowledge and address them? The one place where I have found progress can be made is in the classroom. Not any classroom, though: a classroom with a significant participation grade.

There is an advantage to keeping our heads down. There is an advantage to working hard, ignoring other people's problems, fighting only for our own rights. But it's the same advantage that makes Asian Americans white supremacy's one success.

A participation grade incentivizes engaging over quietly studying for tests. My students have to address larger issues in order to get their grades. Naturally these issues become more urgent to them as they talk about them. They allow themselves to be passionate. Their engagement with each other makes them more passionate. If their grades had not depended on it, they might have gotten through class by doing their own work and keeping out of each other's business. I teach Asian American Studies at the University of Houston, where many students commute, where most students work and are goal-oriented, and where it is very diverse.

My students of color often come in engaged with issues in their communities, but it is harder to convince them that their issues connect to issues in other communities. Their knowledge of how race and difference affect them directly far exceeds their knowledge of why these problems exist. The question of why racism exists links Asian Americans to other minority groups, because it leads to white supremacy. The question of how Asian Americans are different sometimes ends up with students blaming their parents for the model minority stereotype, something that comes with a much more complex and systemic history.

"Model minority" is a term that came into use during the Civil Rights Movement, first put forth by sociologist William Peterson to frame a comparison of "ethnic minorities," to divide and conquer. Asian Americans, it was said, kept their mouths shut, worked hard, and eventually succeeded, so why couldn't African Americans do so? Why did they have to keep fighting and bringing the focus back to race?

If Frank Chin has gotten one thing right, it's that Asian Americans themselves have internalized these claims. They are loath to get into the issue of race unless it affects their own community. Then they might turn out for their community alone, and directly or indirectly side against other communities of color—note the Peter Liang protests, where Asian Americans rallied for an Asian American police officer who killed an innocent, unarmed black man instead of seeing that the privileges police officers get are part of the same system of power that views black people as dangerous threats without privileges and creates the overarching racial hierarchy.

There is an advantage to keeping our heads down. There is an advantage to working hard, ignoring other people's problems, fighting only for our own rights. But it's the same advantage that makes Asian Americans white supremacy's one success. It's the advantage conceded in the dividing that enables conquering. It's advantage without equality. It's an A that's really an F. Asian Americans need to get more involved in the fight against disempowerment. Our disempowerment is not free or protected from the disempowerment of black lives—the link is white supremacy and our empowerment won't come by meeting white supremacy's demands. We must stand with the larger civil rights community that has fought for many of the rights we enjoy in the first place. Participation is mandatory.

Follow Matthew Salesses on Twitter.

In our new VICELAND travel series VICE Does America, we piled VICE staffers Abdullah Saeed, Wilbert L. Cooper, and Martina De Alba into a 1989 Winnebago and sent them off on an epic American road trip to find out what the hell is going on in our country. The trio traveled to forgotten corners of the US and met porn stars, pot heads, Creationist scientists, an African king, and a few pompous presidential candidates along the way.

On the third episode, the gang heads to South Dakota to marvel at Mount Rushmore, then drives east to the Lakota Native American reservation to find out why the tribe has opposed the development of the Keystone XL pipeline for years. They also run into Texas senator Ted Cruz campaigning at the Iowa State Fair and enter a hog calling competition.

Watch the full episode above and check out new episodes of VICE Does America every Wednesday at 10 PM on VICELAND.

Still from VICE's special report on "conversion" therapy

As a survivor of "ex-gay" conversion therapy and the author of a memoir that addresses my experience, I'm often met with incredulity when I talk about the nature of what people are subjected to while undergoing conversion therapy or asked how our society can allow such brutal discrimination to happen. And while these questions are typically well-intentioned, they can seem naïve to individuals who have experienced such cruelty firsthand. It's a privileged worldview which sees the brutality of the past as isolated from our enlightened present; it sees progress as a straight line, and not as the treacherous struggle it actually is.

When I tell audiences that my parents sent me to one of these facilities as recently as 2004, and that only five states thus far have banned the practice for minors, their incredulity turns to anger.

Despite criticism of the practice from the American Psychiatric Association, the American Psychological Association, the American Medical Association, and the Obama administration, throughout the majority of our country, conversion therapy is still legal. This means that 76 percent of our LGBTQ population currently resides in a state where they can legally be asked to detail all of their sexual fantasies in an attempt to lead them into feelings of deep shame and regret. This means that a child can be told that memories of their parents are false, and that some form of early abuse must have "turned them gay." And though over twenty states have attempted to pass legislation banning conversion therapy, legislators in states like Florida and Virginia have struck down similar bills. Meanwhile, Iowa's Board of Medicine, which is made up of "doctors and citizens appointed by the governor," is set to "look into" a proposal to ban the practice in the state, according to the Des Moines Register.

"But you don't have to attend 'ex-gay' therapy to be in 'ex-gay' therapy," I tell skeptics. "All you have to do is dare to be queer in America. The bigotry will come to you."

Watch VICE's special report on "ex-gay" conversion.

I point out that LGBTQ adolescents make up 40% of all homeless youth. Like many queer rights advocates, I believe that the recent string of anti-LGBTQ legislation policing health services and facilities in states like Arkansas, Tennessee, Mississippi and North Carolina is not unconnected from Orlando's Pulse Nightclub massacre, and that outside a few pockets of safety and privilege in our country queer lives have always been, and continue to be, expendable.

'Freedom' and 'safety,' for the Republican Party, means freedom and safety for those who are a product of the "traditional marriage and family," and not for those marginalized Americans who need it most.

Yes, we now live in a country with national marriage equality—yet we also live in a country where one of our two major political parties is currently advancing an agenda to legalize anti-LGBTQ discrimination based on ambiguous notions of "religious freedom." Referring to the Obama administration's inclusion of transgender rights in its interpretation of Title IX, the 2016 Republican Platform, using reactionary language, has declared that Democrats wish to "undermine religion and drive it from the public square." The GOP's solution? The First Amendment Defense Act, which would allow "healthcare professionals, doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and organizations" to turn away customers based on "the rights of conscience" and potentially deprive LGBTQ individuals of their services, a discriminatory practice already legal in states like Arkansas and Tennessee.

Perhaps most troubling is language included surrounding therapeutic practices for minors. Conservative Family Research Council's Tony Perkins, a longtime proponent of conversion therapy, fought hard for the inclusion of the right of parents to "determine the proper medical treatment and therapy for their children" in this year's platform. In addition, Trump's running mate, Indiana Governor Mike Pence, has advocated for "institutions which provide support for those seeking to change their sexual behavior."

In other words, in the GOP's conception of "religious freedom," parents and healthcare professionals should have the right to subject children to brainwashing tactics. In the ideal future of our country under GOP leadership, children should, if parents deem it necessary, be forced to detail all of their sexual fantasies to conversion therapy counselors who wish to lead them into deep feelings of shame and regret. If deemed necessary, those children should be told that memories of their parents are false, and that some form of early abuse must have "turned them gay." A child should be made to believe that their gender identity is a sham, as was the case with trans teen Leah Alcorn, who tragically committed suicide while undergoing such "therapy."

The lie on offer from this year's iteration of the Republican Party is that freedom exists in a vacuum, that everyone in our country has complete access to freedom at all times, and that safety is a matter of personal choice. The GOP's platform "call not zones of intellectual intolerance or 'safe zones,' as if college students need protection from the free exchange of ideas." Republicans, as such, believe that all ideas are truly equal, that hate speech doesn't exist, that minorities do not suffer academically and mentally when subject to bigotry and discrimination. To the GOP, creating safe spaces for these individuals would be "unfair"—a fact that could only be true if we lived in a truly egalitarian society.

"Freedom" and "safety," for the Republican Party, means freedom and safety for those who are a product of the "traditional marriage and family," and not for those marginalized Americans who need it most. This has long been evident to anyone fighting for minority rights in our country, but it seems that now more than ever, as another wave of Republican legislation attempts to limit our freedom in the name of "freedom," we must stay alert to these attacks on our lives.

-----

In 2004, when I was in 'ex-gay' therapy, my counselors told me that "the mainstream US media" was trying to brainwash me into being gay. "Your professors are in on this, too," one of my counselors said. "Don't trust anyone with too many degrees." I was told to trust only the Bible and my parents instead, a sentiment reflected in this year's GOP platform: "A good understanding of the Bible being indispensable for the development of an educated citizenry, we encourage state legislatures to offer the Bible in a literature curriculum as an elective in America's high schools."

This kind of anti-intellectualism followed me for nearly a decade, inhibiting all of the critical thinking skills that could have helped me escape from the self-doubt my counselors instilled in me. It also made it easier to fall into depression and suicidal ideation. In 2016, we cannot allow this blatant anti-intellectualism to control our country's legislative process. It's time: We must turn our incredulity and anger into action.

Follow Garrard Conley on Twitter. His memoir, "Boy Erased," is out now from Riverhead Books.

Photos by Jason Bergman

Just a little after 7 PM on Tuesday night, the event that just a year ago seemed like a ridiculous impossibility finally happened: Donald Trump became the official, nothing-they-can-do-about-it-now Republican presidential nominee. In the end, it was his kids who put him over the edge, pulling off a feat of political theater by delaying New York's place in the roll call vote so that they could put him over the top.

The win didn't come easily. From the moment Republicans realized that the reality TV star was actually serious about his White House run, party leaders tried—and failed, repeatedly—to derail the Trump juggernaut. Just the day before he locked up the nomination, on the opening day of the Republican National Convention, a group of delegates loosely organized into a group called Delegates Unbound and staged a revolt on the arena floor in an attempt to deny Trump the nomination.

Like every other attempt to sink Trump this year, though, that effort failed, thwarted by the real estate mogul's deceptively organized, if completely insane, campaign team. But some delegates continue to insist that they are "Never Trump," disavowing their own nominee before he has even had a chance to accept the nomination this week.

VICE's photographer, Jason Bergman, was in the arena this week, to capture some of their disappointment.

Edmonton's top cop says you should lock up your doors. Thanks, dad. Photo via CP

Crime in Canada increased for the first time in 12 years, and, for the most part, it's all thanks to Alberta, according to new data.

Statistics Canada reported that there was an 18 percent jump in the province's crime severity index (CSI), which determines the volume and severity of police-reported crime. Canada's overall CSI saw a five percent increase from 2014 to 2015.

This spike in Albertan crime has be attributed to many factors, such as the economic downturn due to falling oil prices and a rise of drug-related crime.

Edmonton Police Chief Rod Knecht told reporters this week that he wasn't surprised about the increase.

"We kind of anticipated this. We know property crimes continue to go up again this year – that's driving it. The big driver is break and enters, thefts from vehicles and thefts of vehicles... and it continues to cascade into 2016," he said.

Read More: Fentanyl Took Over My Life, This Is How I Got It Back

He said that there isn't much they can do about it because of the state of their economy, and urges Albertans to lock their cars (thanks, dude.) Beside property crime, violent crime in Alberta has not seen as much of an increase.

"The other violent crimes, other than homicides, are down right now," Knecht said. " are just trending evenly over the past five years."

Last year's rise in fentanyl usage can also be considered when looking at Alberta's rising crime rates. StatsCan reported an national increase in drug-related offences—other than marijuana—in 2015. Crime involving fentanyl increased by six percent. Last year, there were almost 300 fentanyl overdoses in Alberta alone.

Other provinces that saw an increase in crime last year include Saskatchewan, Ontario and British Columbia.

Follow Ebony-Renee Baker on Twitter

Image via Lia Kantrowitz for VICE

We all have hair-care routines, and they usually involve a trip to the barbershop or beauty salon. Those trips, hopefully, result in something we can live with—but sometimes, things go horribly for the client and stylist. We asked some hair stylists about their biggest nightmare clients.

JILL

I once got a death threat from a terrible client on Yelp for "ruining" her life. She was difficult to begin with, made worse by not taking my professional advice. She came into the salon with over-processed hair and no idea how she wanted it cut. I should've told her "I can't help you," but I tried to work with her. She wanted me to do things with her hair type that were physically impossible, but I tried to make her happy. Even though I had other clients waiting, I stayed with her well over the time she booked, too. Stylists sometimes get a bad rap, but most of us try to make the client's hair better than it was when they came in—but some people you just can't help.

ASHLEY

I once did the hair of an entire family that fell apart. The wife left the husband, and they both continued to come to me until he found out she had cheated on him. (It's astounding what clients tell their stylists. Not only do we make you look good, but we also become your therapists!) The wife quit coming because the husband wanted to have me subpoenaed—he thought I knew all her secrets—so she cut ties, thinking he would leave me alone. He still comes to me, though, and he's gotten crazier. Their divorce has been final for a couple of years now, but he still bitches about her. I give him quick, shitty cuts in the hope that he'll go away, but he never does.

JULIE

I have a client whose hair I've been doing for about 14 years, and her sanity gets progressively worse every year. She has severe OCD and makes seven appointments before showing up to one. When she comes in, she cleans the salon's bathroom before I start. For a brief period, she tried to convince me to be her personal shopper. She also wanted me to make her housecleaning appointments for her and help her communicate with a pen pal. I declined.

DEIDRE

I had a client that thought he was funny, but he wasn't. He considered himself the "life of the party," but he wasn't aware of how obnoxious he was. That wasn't even the worst part about him, though: He always insisted on eating while I cut his hair. At his first appointment, he had a pizza delivered. Have you ever tried to do someone's hair while they eat a large pizza? It's not easy. I tried to let him know it was uncouth by asking if he thought food and hair mixed. He didn't get it, and he brought food the next couple times I did his hair, too. I finally cut him loose, and he didn't understand why I let him go. He thought he could do whatever the hell he wanted because he was a good tipper, but he was wrong.

MARTHA

As a stylist, you take what you can get until you build a clientele. I started my career at a "big name" salon in the mall under the assumption that I'd get more foot traffic. The clientele was a mixed bag—teens, geriatrics, soccer moms—and since I was the "noob," they'd give me all the teens (that don't tip, mind you). A goth teen came in and wanted me to shave half her head, so I gave her what she wanted and forgot about it—that is, until the dad came and screamed at me over it. He wanted to "press charges" against me, and mall security had to be called. I wanted to quit immediately, but instead I just found a more legit place to work.

Follow Sean McManus on Twitter.

If you don't live in Ontario, you probably don't know that Mandarin is a chain of all-you-can-eat Chinese-Canadian buffets that lands somewhere between Degrassi and Canada's Wonderland on the cultural spectrum. The place is an institution. Since opening their Brampton location in 1979, Mandarin has expanded to 20-plus (giant-ass) restaurants, offering customers an assortment of Asian, North American, and fusion cuisine. The buffet was also home to many fundraisers for Toronto's former mayor, the late Rob Ford, who just loved the spot.

In grade school, my peers talked about the buffet the way that college students talk about their trip to India: It was a cultural experience that deeply changed how they viewed and interacted with the world. There was even one kid who claimed his family made a weekly pilgrimage to the restaurant, though this was also the same kid who claimed to be next-door neighbours with The Ultimate Warrior. After hearing about it from my classmates, I would beg my parents to go to Mandarin, and I did manage to make it to the buffet twice: once after we put down our family dog, and another time after attending the funeral for a distant relative. In retrospect the fact that my parents used massive amounts of food to quell the inevitability of death seems somewhat problematic, but at the time I wasn't thinking about that. At the time I was thinking that chicken balls in gallons of red sauce are fucking awesome.

Earlier this year I celebrated my 27th birthday and was overwhelmed with the fact that by this age most of my heroes had already gotten famous and died. I've tried to cope with this idea in a couple of different ways: I went to acupuncture, listened to Tony Robbins tapes, and both increased and lowered my antidepressants. None of these things worked and, seeking other options, I decided to return to the childhood comforts of Mandarin. You know, like my parents taught me. I made a pitch to my editor asking if I could spend the duration of service at the buffet (approximately four hours, depending on location) taking in the scene while eating as many plates as possible. I would experience Mandarin as an adult, and I would eat food until I didn't feel feelings anymore. I would sacrifice a bit of my body for piece of mind.

To prep for the Mandarin experiment, I contacted fitness professional and owner of Bang Fitness Geoff Gervitz to talk strategy. "First of all, I can't recommend that you do this," explained Gervitz. "But your number one priority is to eat as rapidly as possible. Stretch receptors in the gut take 15-20 minutes to register satiety. Hormonal regulation during this time is further cued by awareness of flavours and textures, as well as slow, methodical chewing. So don't do any of that shit. Just shovel the food down. Be rushed and—ideally—be distracted. I wish you the best of luck with your impending diarrhea."

With this information in mind I made a reservation for Thursday lunch at Mandarin's Yonge and Eglinton location in Toronto. By booking a reservation at the lunch buffet I hoped that less people would witness my solo descent into a sodium-induced coma. My goal was to eat ten plates of food. I would only stop if I got physically ill.

I arrived at Mandarin just after opening. I waited in line behind half a dozen senior citizens, who were being asked to show ID in order to confirm they are indeed eligible to participate in the seniors discount. After, three staff in matching green Hawaiian shirts ushered me past the broken cotton candy machine and showed me to my corner table in section E. I was given a hot towel to start my experience. I wiped down my face, ordered a diet coke (natch), and from there embarked on a life of desserts, fried food, and freedom. The following are my notes over eleven plates and four hours at Mandarin buffet, and if you're into blurry pictures of food and existential rambling, hold onto your butt. You're in for a wild ride.

All photos by the author

Plate One: Mussels, Curry Chicken, White Fish, Spicy Chicken, Corn, Tempura Yam and Broccoli, Pickles

I treated the first plate like a pool. I jumped in headfirst and hoped that my body would acclimatize quickly. My plate was a little bit of everything from around the buffets perimeter. If it looked appealing I took it. The buffet itself was huge. I had assumed that my childhood memory had distorted the size, but Mandarin literally has bigger selection of food there than I had ever seen outside of a grocery store. The only questionable thing was the placement of the sushi station directly beside three giant aquariums. Seemed kind of tactless. As I finished the first plate and was feeling pretty good and incredibly excited. How difficult could nine more plates be?

Plate Two: Corn on the Cob, Sausage, Quinoa Salad, Caesar Salad, Seaweed Salad, Mussels, Shrimp

For my second plate I dialed things back. It was like a band moving to a deep-cut ballad after starting with their radio-hit. It was like waiting to text the required amount (whatever that is, no one knows) after a great first date. It was like a dude eating a bunch of salad in an attempt to avoid bloating. My grandpa always described salad as the anti-meat. He told me that if you eat enough salad it curbs out whatever you ate before. I've known this was a lie for a very long time, but whatever, that's Grandpa. Got to eat something for your second plate.

Plate Three: Cream of Mushroom Soup, BLT Sushi Roll, Spring Roll Sushi Roll, Ginger, Wasabi

Let me say this: In general, Mandarin's food is pretty good. It was certainly beyond the expectations I had for a place where you are encouraged to consume as much as you can. Some things on the buffet were downright delicious, worthy of a Toronto Life write-up. That being said, the Mandarin's sushi rolls were an abomination. There was the BLT roll and spring-roll roll. These things are exactly what they sound like, and they're disgusting.

At this point my server came to check on me. She was petite and so impossibly nice that I felt guilty eating in her general vicinity. She wanted to remind me that the restaurant was hosting its "Celebrate Canada" event, and suggested I try some of the foods curated to reflect our wonderful country. "Try the chocolate covered maple bacon," she said. "It's delicious."

I marked her suggestion and thought about my fear of getting older. Maybe I could just fill the emptiness in my life with more food? Maybe I could stay at Mandarin forever and every time I felt bad I could just get another plate? Was that an option? I also marked that, under normal circumstances, this is where I would have unequivocally stopped consuming food.

Plate Four: Bannock, Calamari, Onion Rings, Steak, Lemon Chicken, Grilled Chicken, Chicken Wing, Fried Shrimp, Loaded Potato Skin, Tempura Yam

Plate four is where I stopped fucking around. This plate included three different types of chicken. It included calamari and onion rings paired together because of their fried and ring shaped qualities. The wildcard of the plate was the Bannock, a type of bread that is often served by Indigenous Canadians as said the helpful comment card placed beside the Canadian Flag made entirely of sushi rice. Plate four was an incredible array of culinary delights, and it was also when I started to feel physically ill.

Plate Five: Bread (with Butter), Pepperoni Pizza, Nanaimo Bar, Tourtiere Meat Pie, Spring Roll, Chicken Ball, Corned Beef

Before plate five I took a 15-minute break to people watch and double check that my arteries still moved blood. Save for a handful of children I was the youngest person at the lunch buffet by at least a decade. There were groups of seniors, two business meetings, and a few older couples. There were also three other people in my section eating alone, and while my gut reaction was to feel sorry for these people, there was no need. They were fucking stoked, and they were making my food eating skills look amateur.

When I finally worked up the courage to go for plate five, shit got a little crazy. I put pepperoni pizza and a Nanaimo bar on the same plate like I was trying to work through the fever dream of my grade-school chubby years, and from there all bets were off. Bread and Butter? Sure. Chicken Balls? You better believe it. Tourtiere? I love Quebec. Corned Beef? Whop-dee-do it. Upon finishing I looked about seven months pregnant, I was releasing air out of every hole, and I was sweating. This was the fullest I had ever been.

Plate Six: Frozen Yogurt (with Sprinkles), Chocolate Bacon (with Sprinkles), Watermelon, Chocolate Banana, Waffle (with Whipped Cream, Syrup, and Blueberry Sauce)

At plate six I started questioning the morality of my actions. Like, with millions of people hungry in the world, is it morally OK for me to continue eating, even if most of this food is going to be thrown out at the end of the day anyways? Am I actually doing the right thing by trying to eat soon-to-be-tossed-out food? Anyway, my head hurt too much to really get into it.

Accepting that I may not physically be able to continue I loaded up on desserts. As I was crunching down on the maple chocolate covered bacon, which was not as delicious I had I had hoped, when my impossibly nice waitress returns. "Would you like some tea or coffee to go along with the end of your meal?" she asked.

"Oh, no. I'm planning on having more," I replied.

"Oh," she says. Then she walked away.

Plate Seven: Sausage (again), Chocolate-Covered Banana, Deep-Fried Wonton, Lemon Chicken, Lemon, Melon, Celery

At this point of the meal the concept of ten plates stopped being about food and started being about commitment. I was two and a half hours in and seriously considering quitting, but then I thought back to all the things in my life I given up on. A dozen or so relationships. Countless writing projects (shockingly, not this one). Four false starts of P90x. If only for myself, I needed to finish ten plates of food. I needed to prove that I was a finisher. A closer. I had an hour and fifteen minutes to finish three more plates of food. At the table beside me a lone man finished a plate filled to capacity with only chicken balls. Buddy motivated me to press on.

Plate Eight: Deep-Fried Wonton (Again), Oranges, Mini Cheesecake, Jello Shooter, Jello Squares, Tempura Broccoli, Tempura Zucchini

Growing up as a goth, I frequently dropped Nietzsche into casual conversation, but not until stomaching cheesecake chased by tempura did I truly understand that when you look into the abyss, the abyss looks back at you. I moved onto the Jello squares and then the Jello shooter. In my notes I scribbled: are these the actions of a man who is happy with his life? Probably best I avoid answering that.

Plate Nine: Spicy Chicken, Onion Rings, Grapes, Watermelon, Lemon, Cheesecake

By plate nine the entirety of the dining room had turned over three times and my waitress was no longer speaking to me and rightfully so. Occasionally she would stop by to clear any excess plates and refill my diet coke. I had arranged the plate mostly for coverage, and was taking my sweet time with bites and chews. I have had rumors online about Mandarin having a cutoff point after two hours, and while theoretically I was grateful to continue my mission of the full four hours and the full ten plates, it is also important to note at this time I had tasted bile in my mouth at least three times

Plate Ten: Doughnut (with Custard Topping), Chocolate-Covered Bananas, Pecan Pie, Oranges, Fruit Medley

This was it. Plate ten. While stacking up my plate I started with a giant donut and poured custard over top, threw on a chocolate banana, and topped it off with pecan pie for good luck. It was like a marathon runner making that final sprint for the finish line. I had pushed my body to the limit and wanted to make one more burst to see how far it would go. Chewing down and recognizing that this would be final plate I reflected on what I had just done and felt an honest to god sense of accomplishment, and while I realize that journalistically what I had just done was closer to Guy Fieri than Hunter S. Thompson, I felt proud, if very sick. With fifteen minutes to spare I asked for the bill.

Bonus Round: Fortune Cookie

My fortune cookie read "Keep your eyes open and take advantage of the unexpected." A better fortune may have been "You've made and will continue to make bad choices in your life."

Graham Isador threw up while getting to the subway. Follow him on Twitter.

Some people have real problems letting go. A few of those people end up on TV shows where obsessive-compulsive cleaners go around their houses and look physically ill at the sight of all the stuff they've hoarded, because it will "definitely be useful at some point in the future." You know, old ironing boards, massive bits of sharp metal, single windscreen wipers—that kind of stuff. Useful stuff.

But they're the extreme. Lots of us hoard in our own ways, whether that's keeping a "memory box" full of old school reports you'll read maybe once every 15 years, or holding onto a childhood item you can't bear to part with. I asked a few people to bring along some of those items to a photo studio so I could take their picture and ask them why they can't leave those possessions behind.

MIKE AND HIS DRESSING GOWN

VICE: What's your object?
Mike: It's a dressing gown, bought for me by my mom, and I've had it now for at least 22 years, if not 23 or 24.

Why do you still have it?
Basically, when I was young I couldn't sleep unless it was pitch black. Even the thought of any light would keep me awake. So to get around this, I would always sleep with something over my face—and that something was always this dressing gown. It feels really nice; it's basically like a towel, and because it was worn so much it's become so soft. If I pulled this dressing gown over my eyes I'd be out instantly.

That's the reason I've held onto it—I still do it now, but because the gown is in such bad shape it doesn't feel as good any more. It doesn't feel right. So now I just take off whatever T-shirt I'm wearing and drape that over my eyes. It's a shame, really. It's a bit sad. People see it as a "blankey," and that's thought to be a bit silly for a grown man. It's not for any emotional comfort, really; it's purely for the fact that I like something over my eyes. But because I've had it for so long, I wouldn't chuck it away now. I'm gonna have it for life.

OOBAH AND HIS SLIPKNOT WALLET

What's the object?
Oobah: A Slipknot wallet on a chain. I was bought it as a gift by my auntie when I was 13.

So how long have you had it?
Twelve years. That's like the same amount of time I've not eaten meat. You could see this wallet as my chastity belt of vegetarianism.

Why do you still have it?
I just wouldn't want to throw it away. I think it would feel like I was letting go of that part of me. I was a big Slipknot fan and I've thrown away all my hoodies, jumpers, and T-shirts, but I could never throw this away.

It's become useful again, though; I'm wearing it again. And there's a few reasons for that. Firstly, I know it's ridiculous. I was in an off-license the other day and I noticed people laughing at me. I thought, 'Why me?' I was in Brighton and I don't often go to Brighton, so I began to hate Brighton. Then I realized it's because I was leafing through my Slipknot wallet. They were laughing at me because I was a grown man searching through a Slipknot wallet for change.

The other reason is because it's practical. The chain is attached to me, meaning I can't lose it. I've lost five wallets in the past year, so I've resurrected it in an attempt to reconnect with my non-stupid self. When I was pure.

ELLA AND HER ROSARY BEADS

What's your object?
Ella: The rosary beads I was given for my communion, when I was eight.

How come you still have them?
They were given to me by my granddad. I have a strange relationship with Catholicism—I was christened, baptized, all of them; brought up on it, even though I immediately didn't believe in it as soon as I could understand it. I still have them as a reminder of my family, who are all still very Catholic, and they've just kind of come along with me almost mistakenly. The beads have always just been in my draw.

The weird thing about being brought up on Catholicism is that even though I am totally a non-believer, every so often when things aren't going so well you think, 'Hmm, maybe...' So having them is also like a comfort thing. My nanny still throws holy water on us every time we leave Ireland.

IAN AND HIS SKULL

What kind of skull is that?
Ian: It's a red deer's skull.

How did it come to be in your possession?
I found it in the woods. I used to pick up skulls and bones and things when I was quite young. I collected them. Most of them got thrown out because my parents weren't too keen on having parts of dead animals in the house, but this stayed.

It was pretty grubby when I first found it; I think there may have been a little bit of something left in the brain cavity, and you can tell something's been chewing on it, as there are little teeth marks in the top. But that's not the kind of thing that worries you when you're a kid.

How long have you had it?
I must have found it when I was about six or seven, so about 17 years.

And why do you still have it?
I think it was basically because I got to keep a couple of things from my collection of bones and skulls. It's a slightly morbid thing for a child to collect, but there's not much to do in the countryside. In a way, it's sentimental to me; it's something from the countryside, it reminds me of where I grew up. It's followed me wherever I've gone.

MARI AND HER VIOLIN

You've kept a violin?
Mari: Yeah. I used to go to music school, so I took it quite seriously. Piano was my main instrument, but violin was my second study. The piano is still with my family in Japan; my violin is smaller, so it's something I can carry around—something I can keep, even though I don't play on it.

When did you start playing it?
When I was eight, which from Asian parenting is quite late. I started with a quarter size, then to a half size, three quarter size and finally this one, which is full size. The violin is actually German—we went to loads of antique stores to find it. I think it was made in 1847. There's a label inside, but it's kind of rotten.

So at what age did you get this one?
When I was about 11. I played on it until I was about 18, but then started to develop problems with my tendons. It's been untouched for about nine or ten years now.

So how come you still have it?
Even though I can't play it any more, I still love the instrument. There's loads of music I would love to play now if I could. I think if I was to sell it, it would feel like a big part of me has gone away. You have a physical relationship with an instrument. You grow into your instrument and it also feeds into your body; it's a two-way relationship. I wouldn't say getting rid of it is like a breakup with a boyfriend, but it does feel like a big part of my body would go away.

MICHAEL AND NIGHT NIGHT

What's this, then?
Michael: It's Night Night, my teddy bear.

When did you get him?
I was given Night Night by my parents' friends when I was less than a year old. I think the first words I learned to utter were "night night," and I just kept saying them while grabbing this guy, so his name stuck.

How long have you had him?
Twenty-two years now, I guess.

And why haven't you thrown him away?
Hmm, for comfort when I'm by myself in my bed and it's cold. Sometimes when people stay over I have to hide him down the side of my bed because I don't want people to see him. Someone found him once and it was really strange because they started waving him about in bed.

I don't really have any attachment to my childhood—I don't go back to where I grew up as my parents sold the house. Since I left at 18 I've not really been back there, and I don't have any things from that age either. He's like my only physical connection to my entire childhood, and he's really sweet and cuddly.

BEKKY AND HER CHAIN

What's your object?
Bekky: It's a gold chain that was once my mom's.

How did it come to be in your possession?
My mom died when I was a teenager. I found it on her bedside table and have since worn it every day.

How long have you had it?
For about eight years now.

As a reminder of your mom?
For me, it's nice to feel like I'm carrying a little bit of her around with me every day. I think, because I've been wearing it ever since it happened, it makes me feel safe. I always have to know that it's near me. It allows me to still feel connected to her, even though it's only a necklace. It's become a part of me and I'd be lost without it.

KATE AND HER HORSESHOE

What is the object?
Kate: A rusty old horseshoe worn by "Birdie," a 12 hands grey. She was called Birdie because when she jumped, she flew through the air.

How did you get hold of it?
This may have been one that fell off on a ride or was discarded when the farrier was changing her shoes. Either way, it was an old one, so I decided to keep it.

How long have you had it?
Since I was about nine, so 27 years!

And why do you still have it?
Because she was a major part of my life. I grew up in the country—my grandfather was a farmer who rode over his farm to check on the animals and crops; he had horses, which he loved, and would talk to them. They were characters—his friends.

My mom encouraged us to ride once we were old enough to care for them ourselves and strong enough to carry a bucket of water. This frustrated me when I was really small, but at seven I found I was able to carry one. Birdie became the focus of my life for the next seven years, until unfortunately I outgrew her at about 14.

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