#I DON'T KNOW?

[cleolinda]

I’m trying to plan out something fun to do, but it involves New Skills and Learning Software and the Mortifying Ordeal of Being Known, and my clinically-diagnosed anxiety is rearing up at every step. My mom’s life motto is “Work the problem,” so I'm trying to remember that every time I hit a speed bump. What's the next step in dealing with this problem? What question do you need to google, what article do you need to read, what peripheral do you need to research?

The thing is, I've noticed that every time in my life I make a bunch of confident promises and give myself a rousing pep talk, my executive functioning folds immediately. Like a lawn chair. Just--gone. So we're not doing that this time; I'm tricking myself into not noticing that I'm accomplishing anything. We are all going to have to deal with my anxiety (and yours as well, if you want) and learn to accept it and work alongside it. Because I've noticed that when I'm--let's say, when I let myself be ~vulnerable with the universe--I tend to get further. Maybe subconsciously I reduce tension by saying, "Look, I never said I would definitely do it." On the other hand, maybe lowering expectations for myself makes me really want to exceed those expectations. (The only thing worse than being a perfectionist is being someone who wants to exceed perfectionism. I'm a recovering Gifted Kid™, yeah.) So, anyway, I feel like talking about it because I know you are out there, Anxiety Nation. I know you Get It.

How bad do you want this? What enthusiasm brought you here? Would anything explode, would anyone die if you failed?

[sanctuarynurse]

Spaghetti loop dooper THE third

[taonpest]

So what do we think about the remaster my fellow lok mutuals

[life-winners-liveblog]

sl!Jim is sooooooooo cute!!! All the other losers are just being mean >:(

*gives a doggy hairpin* For big dogs! *gives backpack* To help with the mailing!! Stay safe and have fun!!

DL!Scott…..Idk why but I feel like being nice to you today…just say one or two things you want and I’ll give it to you!

-🌺🪸🥀

****

[hsslilly-blog]

guys do you think i publish the post for our pride event tomorrow so people have time to prep or do i post it only on the 1st?

[arainmorn-art]

Guys, I just had right now a weird memory unlocked. Does anyone of you remember an animated show about little amphibian kids (they were anthopomorphic, I remember one of them, a boy, having blond hair with bangs) travelling through the swamp and being stalked by some evil force that might turn them into toadstool fungi? And in some episodes they met their old friend, and a little girl was screaming: "Oh no! He turned into a toadstool!" - looking at the mushroom. It felt really dark. It wasn't a dream, I know it, because there were couple of times when I've seen it on TV, but never could catch up the schedule to watch it fully. I was in the kindergarten, but I swear it wasn't a dream!

I'm currently watching a video about fungus for my comic and my brain is telling me weird stories from the past.

[aparticularbandit]

Also. Unrelated. To my previous post.

I've been thinking a lot about the past stuff Kyoko doesn't know about because here's the thing - even if she doesn't know, Junko should - and trying to find the root of this whole knight thing and, uh.

Yeah, at least in backstory terms, this is probably definitely a past ship. Just in terms of this makes sense from what I'm gathering, this is the general scenario I'm seeing.

But it doesn't necessarily need to be that way?

(And I still don't know if Junko was even remotely being legit or if she was just...being Junko. Because like. Matsuda was still very much a thing. I'm definitely already implying that Mikan was a thing. And that's a really quick cycle from one to the other to a third there, especially if Mikan should have been simultaneous to probably both to some extent (and if I remember correctly, DR3 makes that SUPER abusive on Junko's end, and actually coming out of everything with Matsuda, I could see how she ended up there, but that's another theory to think about after I've actually seen DR3). Like there's some layers specifically just to the Junko side of this that I. still want to think through.)

[captainsweet]

Am I writing ANOTHER Rise AU That is Brains and Brawn centric? Yes. Yes I am. Do I know why? Because I'm bored that's why, what, I'm not in for questioning or anything.

[joannamarianna]

Worship, war and compassion

Witchcraft, Wisdom, Death...

[j-tee]

SHAPE HELL

Yup.

[scapegods]

what if this scene was worse

[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.

[nathaniacolver]

arcane ships be like

i love a show that teaches equality (😭😭😭)

[mayhemchicken-artblog]

in the hour or so it took me to draw this op turned reblogs off

EDIT: reblogs are STAYING OFF. op was right and correct and i have never regretted making a post as much as this one. if you want to reblog my art you can reblog something else from my blog. or commission me, lord knows i deserve financial compensation for the nightmare this post has put me through

[antarcticconfessions]

I love how it doesn't matter what expedition it is.

They all turn into excited kids when they meet penguins.