sortaanalyticoptimisticstudent

[sortaanalyticoptimisticstudent]

The atmosphere here is indescribable and happiness covers the sky of Gaza, the Palestinian people are very happy

[sortaanalyticoptimisticstudent]

That’s why any and every son-of-a-bitch we find wearin’ a Nazi uniform, they’re gonna die.

INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS (2009) dir. Quentin Tarantino

[sortaanalyticoptimisticstudent]

I don't know why this keeps happening but I keep meeting toxic heterosexual couples who experiment with polyamory and are heavily into funko pops, board games, Disney princesses and Burlesque stripping and the man is always a withdrawn bearded dude and the woman is always a passive aggressive control freak with an Etsy shop that sells lawn gnomes styled after Dr Who characters and they don't really even seem to like each other but they're always exactly the same. this has happened four times

[sortaanalyticoptimisticstudent]

what the fuck is the ick

[sortaanalyticoptimisticstudent]

Sometimes I remember that what the average person perceives as kinky is like, easily escapable bondage and using sex toys as a couple, and that always makes me go “oh, right, I’m like, unhinged unhinged.”

[sortaanalyticoptimisticstudent]

since reblogs were turned off, I screenshotted the post and I’m posting it again.

[sortaanalyticoptimisticstudent]

This rollercoaster has been fun, but I wish I’d never gotten on it.

[sortaanalyticoptimisticstudent]

GET. AI. OUT. OF. FANDOM. Stop making headcanons with it, stop making fanfic with it, stop making fanart with it. If I see one more "asking chatgpt *blank* about *character/characters in a fandom* I'm going to lose my goddamn mind. Use your own fucking brain, stop asking AI to do everything. You could even ask other real people what they think. Just. Stop. Using. AI. In. Creative. Spaces.

[sortaanalyticoptimisticstudent]

started to type “ppl will call themselves monsterfuckers just bc they’re into pyramidhead 🙄” and i think maybe i should logout and use facebook for a few days to recalibrate my perspective on society at large

[sortaanalyticoptimisticstudent]

[sortaanalyticoptimisticstudent]

Idgaf if you don't want to write essays for school. I don't care if you don't want to write corporate emails yourself. I don't care if you can't draw well, I don't care if you can't write well, I don't care if you just really really want to talk to your favorite fictional character but don't want to RP with a real person because you have social anxiety or whatever

If you're still regularly using generative ai, chatgpt or midjourney or character.ai or literally whatever the fuck, im personally blaming you when my utility prices start going up.

[sortaanalyticoptimisticstudent]

[sortaanalyticoptimisticstudent]

ICE raids are starting on Tuesday in Chicago.

Yell “ICE” and “LA MIGRA” to disrupt them. Notify people and use your privilege as a citizen to make ICE’s job as difficult as possible.

Fascism has been here. It’s just loud now. Time to be loud too.

[sortaanalyticoptimisticstudent]

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.

[sortaanalyticoptimisticstudent]

[sortaanalyticoptimisticstudent]

[sortaanalyticoptimisticstudent]