#probably never stop

[insanityisdivine]

so the reason Ace hasn't toured outside US

is because he doesn't have a passport. Get it back, please!!!!!!

[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.

[kedreeva]

There's some dude (derogatory) on FB who is PISSED people are pricing their farm fresh eggs at $2 and $3 a dozen instead of $4+, saying it's "disrespectful" and "undignified" and "I'm trying to feed my kids" like Sir, you are on a Facebook group page bitching about your neighbors egg prices because your pet chickens aren't earning you a living wage and you think it's your neighbors' fault, you do not have a leg to stand on here wrt dignity.

Also half the answers are like "I give them to friends and family free" or "I donate them to food banks" or "I'm making them affordable to folks who might not otherwise be able to get them now that they're so expensive in the store" and "if you think you're going to turn a profit keeping backyard chickens you have been wildly misled" and so on, and so forth, and I'm so living for it.

and I can tell you right now, he did NOT like my answer of "if you're trying to feed your kids, I hear eggs are edible."

[patopq]

mother

[aroaceleovaldez]

one of my favorite parts about Percy being Obviously Bi™ is he doesn't universally describe one gender as attractive. Like he doesn't just say all girls are cute and guys are just okay or whatever or vice versa. No, he has specific girls he finds pretty and specific guys he finds pretty, and he voices that opinion.

For example - Clarisse? Thalia? Meh. Even Silena, who is canonically very pretty, Percy is relatively neutral on. But Annabeth? Rachel? Calypso? 100%. And based on differences in descriptions like that we can tell when Percy is attracted to somebody versus isn't. He calls everybody else in Beckendorf's cabin ugly and then waxes poetic about how hot Beckendorf is specifically. He'll describe most guys as just "eh" with plain physical descriptors but every time he sees Luke he feels the need to specify that Luke is extremely hot while being very evil and how much he hates Luke's stupid very very pretty face. love that for you Percy. great work.

[zorangezest]

thanks for listening

[shepscapades]

Contrary to popular belief etho and bdubs are not divorced and in this essay I will

[monttagues]

INSANE CAST. IM OBSESSED.

[chloesimaginationthings]

Michael teaches FNAF movie Vanessa, Aftons never win

[misstoodles-doodles]

Clone Force 99 Hijinks 💥

>Sometimes you need a transport to get to safety. Sometimes you are the transport.

Closeups:

This was fun ❤️ XD

[supernovatx]

Obviously “America is Great Again” is a fantastic critique of capitalism and American propaganda, which would be enough to make it an incredible scene on its own. It’s a great song and a great demonstration of the show’s themes, and it’s really well done.

But there’s a tragic layer to that song that really elevates it for me, and that’s because it’s specifically MacNamara singing it.

MacNamara first is introduced to seem like a stereotypical patriotic army guy in the scene where he knocks Paul out. However, he then subverts that in the next scene where we learn his true morals, namely that he believes in love and humanity as his higher purpose and he will put that above the orders of his country if they conflict. He chooses to let Paul live because of that, and when Paul asks if he can save Emma, MacNamara gives him his gun and tells him to go. We learn, as does Paul, that despite his appearance and general vibes, he is a genuinely good person who wants to help and is willing to put his moral code above his patriotism.

But when he gets apotheosized, he becomes the complete opposite. Suddenly his loyalty is to his country only, and his own moral code is erased in service of that, which causes contradictions between the lyrics of AIGA and his thoughts in the scene with Paul. “You can’t run because our borders are closed” when he was helping Paul escape in a helicopter as a human; “Americans should fit a mold” when he didn’t at all fit the “douchey army patriot” mold he was presented with; “There’s only room for right and wrong” when he clearly is able to choose between his own morality and his orders, indicating a more complex outlook instead of a binary. He becomes the stereotype he was subverting, and in doing so he becomes someone that the real MacNamara would have hated. That’s the tragedy of that song, and of the whole show really, is that the people who become part of the hive mind lose their true selves and are only able to act in their stereotypical roles, even if that’s nothing like how they actually were as humans.

There’s also something to be said here about how the us war machine and capitalism corrupts people and makes them into something they would never have been otherwise through a forced loss of personhood but I can’t figure out how to phrase that so

[xwilltruman]

the pitt on twitter part 7

[lilybug-02]

Two comic pages in less than 24 hours? I think I'm loosing it.

Bug Fact: The Volcano Snail is a deep-sea snail that grows its own suit of iron armor — and thrives near boiling underwater volcanoes. Pictures Below

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Masterpost

Screw You, Snails are being classified as bugs in these Bug Facts.

The worlds coolest snail. It even rocks red and black coloration.

[professorfcknmoriarty]

if you don't want people to think you're a bird guy you should stop acting like such a bird guy

[technically-human]

EEEEE!! I love your stobotnik art sm! If ur open to it id love to see some more art of the pair interacting with themselves/each other in the future? 👉👈

Anyways, (eats ur art)

Stone has some regrets and Robotnik is learning some stuff

ko-fi

[aquanutart]

dragon dance