#< should I use that tag

[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.

[butchfalin]

the funniest meltdown ive ever had was in college when i got so overstimulated that i could Not speak, including over text. one of my friends was trying to talk me through it but i was solely using emojis because they were easier than trying to come up with words so he started using primarily emojis as well just to make things feel balanced. this was not the Most effective strategy... until. he tried to ask me "you okay?" but the way he chose to do that was by sending "👉🏼👌🏼❓" and i was so shocked by suddenly being asked if i was dtf that i was like WHAT???? WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY TO ME?????????? and thus was verbal again

[galaxylover06]

Their name is Barry and they can't escape the digital cir

[spacerockband]

Quetzalcoatlus! poised to spear her prey!

[prismsoup]

Watched the horrible minecraft movie trailer </3 My friends and I decided to make this stupid thing while suffering Bingo to find out how bad that movie is actually going to be

@a-witch-in-a-dumpster thank you for half the ideas <3

[anniflamma]

Y'all asked for a part 2 of Odysseus seducing Zeus. This is all you get. .... Part 3

[bixels]

me too, luna.

[egophiliac]

hear me out

silver vanrouge ❌️

silver draconia ✔️

malleus beats lilia to the punch

[keferon]

Don’t mind me I just like to see him go bananas about cartoonish Autobot rules

Maaan…..if Prowl was in tfp he would spontaneously combust at least once a day

[dormatheus]

Later the lamb would just think that the real thing is nicer than the gaunlet idk

I gave up so fast holy shit

-💊

[420technoblazeit]

has anybody else seen the bit in tommy's new video yet. where he asks mumbo jumbo if he can revive technoblade with redstone. bc that actually made my jaw DROP hol yshit. the pause just before he says it. you can hear the gears turning in phil's head as he realizes what tommy's about to say. the immediate psychic damage. truly horrid thank you tommy. ik techno would be losing it over that joke

[stealingyourbones]

Danny’s clockwork emblem gets damaged and causes him to glitch and slip through time (think Loki tv show Time Slipping or Into the Spider-Verse glitching). Lucky for him it’s not too random, his sporadic time jumps and flickering in and out of reality is centered on this vaguely familiar superhero he remembered Clockwork mentioning and he doesn’t quite know why.

[cuppajj]

BAAU Sugarposting from the magma!

Happening later in the timeline, the stress of saving her kingdom weighs too heavily on Princess to bear. Thankfully, someone is there to take it all away, with plans of her own…

[canideformed]

Actually crazy how if you so much as even breathe in the direction of supporting transmascs as a transfem how many people (cis people, transmascs, transfems, literally anybody) will crawl out of the woodworks to scream that you, “will never understand transmisogyny,” are “privileged,” are “being a whiny TME,” are being a “typical man,” are “speaking over women,” etc., without even considering the possibility that you might be transfem.

[alukaforyou]

hes just like a little flower to me🌸

hes like noooo stoppp this is embarrassing ✋✋✋

i cant believe i worked on the face the whole dam day and it looks weird lmaooo kmsss 💀 ig u can look forward to the finished version i'll uhhh keep working on it until it looks right >_<

song i picked to draw to was 'moonflower' by lucia its very historical kdrama ost sounding, very longing yearning pretty lyrics >_<;;

the mv tho lmfaooawofejrkgnnofaeif monster loving??? 👀👀👀

u kno whats f'd up abt drawing sukuna; i still have to sketch out the rest of his face before i put the two eyes over it to check if everything looks right wtf like its gonna be covered anyways but the way i still have... to.. draw it under LOL 👎 im just not confident enough to go straight into it yanno?

i completely failed at going the dilf route cuz i just cant draw that my art skillz are not there yet 👎 so i just went the pretty boi route i always pull up lee soo hyuk face ref pics when drawing my other anime husband madara but i summoned him for sukuna this one time too even tho idt they look alike at all,, it just helps to have his face out tho idk. my fave drawing buddy mr lee :3c ALSO!! my cat decided to take a multi hour long eep on my lap i couldnt move, me legs & back hurt sm 😵‍💫

anyways im gonna take months to finish this pic ^_T i just cant draw as much as i used to.. dam adulting sucks :/ i dont want a job TT I DID finish ONE tho one of the 3 in the set heres a lil preview i felt like such a dam perv drawing this lol 🤪

i was looking at a loooot of body builder ref pics they have sm arm veins???? and on the lower tummy DICK area im crying what the hale🥴🥴🥴🥴🥴🥴🥴😖😖😖😖😖😖😖😖

[delicourse]

Snake Year