#listen... walk with me...

[mobius-m-mobius]

If it’s all the same to you… I’ll have that drink now.

[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.

[holographings]

my troubled perfect princess who deserves 400 years in jail <3

[cruellesummer]

there was danger in the heat of my touch

[dollypopup]

unpopular opinion. . .but I do NOT want Anthony to walk Penelope down the aisle. Not only because they don't really have much of a relationship, the two of them really haven't interacted at all, but also because Anthony has really been. . .pretty damn hard on Colin. Like of all the siblings, Anthony has been the most stern and displeased with Colin. There's just something about the idea of him walking Pen down the aisle to Colin that doesn't sit right with me when Anthony was also the one of the linchpins who encouraged and pushed Colin to put on his mask. S1 he made fun of him for being a virgin, S2 he yelled at him in full view of the entire family for investing money in Pen's family to the point where Benedict and Eloise called him out for it, and S3, the only praise he gave him was for the attention he got from others after putting on a persona

No, I want someone else to walk Penelope down the aisle. A man who is also a wife guy, completely besotted, and would completely get Colin's feelings toward Pen. A man who already has a good relationship with Penelope, to the point where he was absolutely delighted to see her looking beautiful in a new dress. A man who has taken up the mantle as the OG Featherington Husband and would be nothing but excited for the honor of walking his Sister in Law down the aisle

and the man for this job?

None other than

Albion Finch

[inkskinned]

i'm still trying to piece together the truth of it. when you left, you said: feel free to spin this narrative however you want. i have no idea if you were being cruel or if you just genuinely don't remember what you've done to me.

it's hard because i'd done so much of the work for you. i had seen the parts that flaked off, the rust underneath. i started separating you into two people - the one i loved, and the one who hurt me. i had this fantasy version of you - my partner - and then i had this stranger, a third person who would show up randomly to shatter me. i am deliriously glad i'm no longer with "the stranger". i miss the gentle (unreal?) "other" you terribly.

at first, i was so strict about my boundaries. i remember telling you to get the fuck out of my house if you were going to talk to me like that. by the end: i would justify your behavior for you, accepting even your mistreatment as "my fault" in the grand scheme. i look back on the person i was before you - smart, independent, confident - and i feel a strange sense of detachment. i don't even recognize me.

even in one of our last conversations, you said: if you want a partner that always talks warmly to you, find someone else. there was a time that a comment like that would have made me leave. and instead, somehow, i just placidly accepted that kind of thing. you were literally telling me that i wasn't allowed to have a reaction to your cruelty - and i just took it, because you'd so fully turned things around on me.

when people are faced with irrationality, a rational brain tries to make sense of it. this is the trap. they're lovely in the morning, gentle and blue-eyed and sweet. like nothing even happened, they breeze around the house and kiss you on the mouth. but at night; who is that? they snap almost randomly; flying into an impotent rage about just-about-anything. it just doesn't make sense. so the problem must be me, and my brain, and how i think.

the traumatized brain just wants peace. so maybe i'm misremembering. maybe you were just having a bad day. maybe it's actually me.

you eventually would fully turn on me and start implying that i am the bad actor in our relationship. that's what happens, right? that's literally in the playbook. you went to therapy for all of a month, told her a half-truth, co-opted therapyspeak. you figured out how to reframe your actions as "seeking peace." any time i stood my ground, i was "gaslighting." when i asked you to be more gentle, you said i was "tone policing." you said, randomly, i had emotionally manipulated you - i still have no idea what that's even specifically referring to. maybe my consistent requests for calmness and empathy?

and while i literally know better, and i'm sitting here, trained by you, thinking: wait, fuck. was i actually the person you made me out to be?

and the thing that scares me is that i literally do not know if you ever actually saw what you were doing to me. when you'd tell me how you remember arguments, you'd always summarize them in a way where you come off as gentle and easy: "i was trying to set an important boundary." what had actually happened was 15 minutes of you shouting at me i know you did something shady, just admit it already. eventually you'd say my reaction to your shouting (when i finally reacted, which usually happened around hour three) was inevitably "disappointing" and "another way i'm silencing your feelings."

how many times did i ask you - beg you - to just take accountability? looking back, i don't think i ever heard you say: you're right. the way i talked to you was wrong of me.

i am trying to tie together the two people into a full version of you in my head. yes, you made my coffee and made me laugh and spent hours on the phone with me. and yes - you would scream at me until i had to run away and hide behind something.

i wish i did have a narrative i could pull out and shape to my whim. i wish i did have some semblance of reality. instead i just stand here, strange and vibrating, wondering: what the fuck just happened?

[hawnks]

You're jealous. It makes you lash out, makes you meet Keigo with claws and teeth and cruel, irrational accusations.

You pack a bag after your last big blow up, shame dogging your every move. A week. Maybe a little more. However long it takes you to stop feeling like a monster, to rein in these dark impulses that have taken hold of you.

He stops you at the door with a firm grip around your arm. Looming over you, leaning down until he's in your space.

"Why?"

How can you even respond. Why? Isn't he angry with you? Doesn't he see how unreasonable you're being?

You tell him the truth. "I'm embarrassed, Keigo."

His hold on you tightens. "So you're running away?"

"I'm not--" You let out a long breath. "I just need to calm down. Get a hold of myself."

"You can do that here. At home."

You tug. He doesn't release you.

"I don't want you to see me like this."

His expression turns stormy.

"You want to keep secrets from me?" You can't even question this before he's continuing, eyes amber bright and sharp as he pulls you further into his space. "You don't want me to see you what --jealous? Don't I have a right to know? Don't I deserve to be with you for this? We're lovers, and you still want to hide pieces of yourself from me?"

Trembling, you let yourself be drawn back into the penthouse. You couldn't fight him even if you tried.

He sets you on the bed, so he can push you down, curl up on top of you, all around you. Caging you in.

"There," he says. "You're not going anywhere. Would it help if I told you about all the times I wanted to kill anyone who touches you? How about how I want to lock you up, forever and ever? I can show you the collar I picked out, if that would make you feel better." He leans up so he can nibble your ear, whisper, "Or you could put it on me, if you want."

[misskaterinat]

I need you all to walk with me.

[not-equippedforthis]

don't think about watson coming back from switzerland with 2 suitcases and a crumpled hat in his fist. don't think about mrs hudson's smile falling when she realises there's only one of them. don't

[lunammoon]

Little spoon Lucanis. Reblog. You agree.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Unsolved Mysteries.

[First] Prev <–-> Next

[emmaxrosa]

nat & shauna; hand in unloveable hand

yellowjackets; ashley lyle & bart nickerson / the perjured city, hélène cixous / in the twenty-fifth year of marriage, it goes on, alicia ostriker / an oresteia, anne carson / @ojibwa / slaughterhouse, yves olade / unknown

[zorangezest]

IT TOOK ME BY SURPRISEE

[pancake-crab]

Erhm... rise Leosagi, but more Leomoto? I'm still surfing through miyamoto (?) lore Sooooooooooo...

[ihavealavalamp]

Never Quite Free, The Mountain Goats [x]

[kyeomic]

gose 2024 rewatch – mupama or neoguri? 🥺