#and my preferences

[incandescentflower]

So I ended up doing a full rewatch of To My Star 2 because it was Hwang Da Seul's work that I had felt the most complicated about and in some ways Let Free the Curse of Taekwondo had already started reminding me of that story.

And yes, after some time and fully understanding what the story was trying to do from the beginning, I enjoyed it so much more. I really truly had thought they were doing some romcom spin of why Jiwoo had left - like he knew the truth of his parents' being conned would come out and didn't want that to negatively impact Seojoon. I expected full on noble idiocy and what we got was so much more complex than that. I think it was a factor yes. I think Jiwoo had fully convinced himself that Seojoon was better off without him, even when we saw Seojoon so desperate to get Jiwoo back, that wasn't what Jiwoo was seeing.

I still feel like a more integrated pov would have been better where the tension was them misunderstanding each other than just focusing on Seojoon's pov and then flipping at the end, but that's really just my preference in where I like the dramatic tension.

But I am writing about it because it's pretty much the same storytelling structure we are getting in Let Free the Curse of Taekwondo.

I am thinking a lot about the possible reasons that Dohoe left, the ones he told himself and the one's he didn't admit to himself. It works for me much better than TMS2 because the level of trauma is so intense, the major decision making that led to this all happened when they were so young and the reasons are so much easier to extrapolate because we've seen so much of what they've been through on screen.

But I still find it hard to take that the one who tends to reach out is the one who is so brutally shut out. I hope there's a little more time spent in this story focusing on how Dohoe hurt Ju Young by simply leaving without explanation and hiding away from him.

[heartbreakincident]

nothing but respect for our troops (smut writers) but listen. i dont want to be the person to tell you this, but not every character is going to be a dom or a sub. some people. and i know this is hard to hear. but some people do have vanilla sex. and some of those people might even be The Character.

[shadesofmauve]

I want to step away from the art-vs-artist side of the Gaiman issue for a bit, and talk about, well, the rest of it. Because those emotions you're feeling would be the same without the art; the art just adds another layer.

Source: I worked with a guy who turned out to be heavily involved in an international, multi-state sex-slavery/trafficking ring.

He was really nice.

Yeah.

It hits like a dumptruck of shit. You don't feel stable in your world anymore. How could someone you interacted with, liked, also be a truly horrible person? How could your judgement be that bad? How can real people, not stylized cartoon bogeymen, be actually doing this shit?

You have to sit with the fact that you couldn't, or probably couldn't, have known. You should have no guilt as part of this horror — but guilt is almost certainly part of that mess you're feeling, because our brains do this associative thing, and somehow "I liked [the version of] the guy [that I knew]", or his creations, becomes "I made a horrible mistake and should feel guilty."

You didn't, loves, you didn't.

We're human, and we can only go by the information we have. And the information we have is only the smallest glimpse into someone else's life.

I didn't work closely with the guy I knew at work, but we chatted. He wasn't just nice; he was one of the only people outside my tiny department who seemed genuinely nice in a workplace that was rapidly becoming incredibly toxic. He loaned me a bike trainer. Occasionally he'd see me at the bus stop and give me a lift home.

Yup. I was a young woman in my twenties and rode in this guy's car. More than once.

When I tell this story that part usually makes people gasp. "You must feel so scared about what could have happened to you!" "You're so lucky nothing happened!"

No, that's not how it worked. I was never in danger. This guy targeted Korean women with little-to-no English who were coerced and powerless. A white, fluent, US citizen coworker wasn't a potential victim. I got to be a person, not prey.

Y'know that little warning bell that goes off, when you're around someone who might be a danger to you? That animal sense that says "Something is off here, watch out"?

Yeah, that doesn't ping if the preferred prey isn't around.

That's what rattled me the most about this. I liked to think of myself as willing to stand up for people with less power than me. I worked with Japanese exchange students in college and put myself bodily between them and creeps, and I sure as hell got that little alarm when some asian-schoolgirl fetishist schmoozed on them. But we were all there.

I had to learn that the alarm won't go off when the hunter isn't hunting. That it's not the solid indicator I might've thought it was. That sometimes this is what the privilege of not being prey does; it completely masks your ability to detect the horrors that are going on.

A lot of people point out that 'people like that' have amazing charisma and ability to lie and manipulate, and that's true. Anyone who's gotten away with this shit for decades is going to be way smoother than the pathetic little hangers-on I dealt with in university. But it's not just that. I seriously, deeply believe that he saw me as a person, and he did not extend personhood to his victims. We didn't have a fake coworker relationship. We had a real one. And just like I don't know the ins-and-outs of most of my coworkers lives, I had no idea that what he did on his down time was perpetrate horrors.

I know this is getting off the topic, but it's so very important. Especially as a message to cis guys: please understand that you won't recognize a creep the way you might think you will. If you're not the preferred prey, the hind-brain alarm won't go off. You have to listen to victims, not your gut feeling that the person seems perfectly nice and normal. It doesn't mean there's never a false accusation, but face the fact that it's usually real, and you don't have enough information to say otherwise.

So, yeah. It fucking sucks. Writing about this twists my insides into tense knots, and it was almost a decade ago. I was never in danger. No one I knew was hurt!

Just countless, powerless women, horrifically abused by someone who was nice to me.

You don't trust your own judgement quite the same way, after. And as utterly shitty as it is, as twisted up and unstead-in-the-world as I felt the day I found out — I don't actually think that's a bad thing.

I think we all need to question our own judgement. It makes us better people.

I don't see villains around every corner just because I knew one, once. But I do own the fact that I can't know, really know, about anyone except those closest to me. They have their own full lives. They'll go from the pinnacles of kindness to the depths of depravity — and I won't know.

It's not a failing. It's just being human. Something to remember before you slap labels on people, before you condemn them or idolize them. Think about how much you can't know, and how flawed our judgement always is.

Grieve for victims, and the feeling of betrayal. But maybe let yourself off the hook, and be a bit slower to skewer others on it.

[kaereth]

Dragon harpy chimera birdy FALIN!! I love her

[oddfamiliar]

Sammie :(

[stemmmm]

more people gotta try this shit where bill has not improved and will not change but he's just chilling so its fine probably. its great

[chloesimaginationthings]

Being unemployed is better in FNAF universe

[callisteios]

i made a character uquiz. i 100% promise you that you will get a character you know AND like

[theborzoiarebackintown]

When you wet down a borzoi they scrunch up like a paper straw wrapper

[sisaloofafump]

Sleepingy

[fckbatmanhiskidsareminenow]

batfam meets the JL but it’s just the bat kids breaking into the watch tower during a debriefing or meeting to ask bruce the most mundane questions. they go about it like they’re interns that need to speak to the CEO during a board meeting. they walk over waving their hands and mouthing “i’m so sorry just need to ask batman something 😬” and then they lean over to bruce and ask something like “alfred wants to know if you’re gonna be home for dinner” and then they dip.

one of them started this when bruce didn’t answer their texts (it was probably tim or something) and now everyone does it.

[bixels]

me too, luna.

[oyabun-draws]

heyyyyy hannibal fandom... its been a while....

[retquits]

question because i'm curious...

+ tell me your favorite pokemon/reasoning in the tags i'm nosy