#I should do more tags

[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.

[bacchuschucklefuck]

couldnt draw my thang for mid-autumn so treated myself to a calne redesign instead

[consultingfujoshi]

inconsolable over irving in this episode. no nuance here, irving is straight up suicidal in this episode. essentially placing him in the same circumstances in which mark chose to become severed - suffering unimaginable heartbreak and seeing switching his brain off as the only viable option for coping with it - and giving him that same choice at surface level to be relieved of it - except it's NOT the same at all, because innies don't get to compartmentalise, they ARE the compartmentalisation, if they choose to switch themselves off, they DIE. the illusion of choice here. irving can either suffer mindless torture of monotony every day with the knowledge that the man he loves is dead and never coming back, or he can fucking DIE. and he genuinely sees that as a viable option. as his only way out of this pain. because even if he did make it out, if he somehow against all odds gained his freedom in the outside world, he'd still have nothing. burt would not be waiting for him.

"I should be happy he's happy" and the way he doesn't even feel entitled to his grief?? like he has no right to be feeling the pain he's feeling right now? innie indoctrination goes so hard he's incapable of seeing that the very fact he's grieving innie burt, a hypothetical life they could have had together, is proof that he's just as real as his outie counterpart! he has just as much right to that life as anyone! like, NO, irv! you have been wronged, you have been so deeply wronged, they made you capable of feeling these things and forming this relationship and falling in love and then systematically removed every tool you could have had to pursue it, and then effectively handed you a length of rope and made you feel like the only empowerment you can find is in the act of hanging yourself with it.

"if he's gone and I'm gone, then somehow, we'll be together" broke me because he really has been so beaten down by this point at the hopelessness of it all, realising that there is no scenario in which he can be with the man he loves, that his only hope at finding any triumph or meaning in this is to die along with burt. at least in chasing him into oblivion, he will have made the one choice he could have to follow his heart. and that as a queer-centric narrative specifically is actually devastating.

SUCH an insane and heavy thing to come straight out of the gate with in the season premier. immediately cementing irving as one of the most masterfully complex characters I've ever seen - i can only hope his arc this season is in finding strength in the act of defiance at last and making good on his promise to burn lumon to the ground for what they've put him through. to carry that grief and channel it into bringing the system that has wronged you down. I believe in the power of queer rage and vengeance!!!!

[spookygibberish]

Silly design exercise in which I customize the homunculi and throw them into blenders

[wasyago]

tango doodles

first you make up a guy and then you struggle to draw him correctly

[justladders]

This is your protagonist, everyone. This is the man sap that we’re supposed to cheer for.

[r-aindr0p]

I- I might have doodled some more- Rollo can point anything deadly at Rook all he wants, it still won't make him back away or stop grinning. Rook's been knocking at the window randomly for weeks before finally getting (accidentally) invited in And he's probably awake during daytime too because why not, the trickier to move around the funnier ! It's like playng the floor is lava but actually deadly ! :)))

Previous

[mohntilyet]

still i think the one of the more fun differences drawn between illario and lucanis that was lost would be illario's ability to endear himself to others but serious lack of empathy, vs. lucanis' (self perceived) inability to be charming but how much he cares. it's interesting that the game has gone with the "lucanis' ability vs illario's lack thereof" because i think illario being the dellamorte 'best in show dog' vs. lucanis' attack dog would have made me so unwell.

lucanis is... awkward. he's not unlikable, because he is usually very polite, but he doesn't speak much and only seems to care about the other dellamortes. he once sent viago de riva a knife with no note (who knows what he could have meant by this). he does what caterina asks of him, and by his own admission, cannot say no to her. he is a dramatic and prolific killer, and that makes how untouchable he is even worse.

and the crows like illario, sure, AND he's a good assassin! he's even a good crow! he's so good that he can make lucanis smile, and so he is the charming, sociable one. he's the one that stays in treviso and can be relied upon to care, illario's even the one people prefer over caterina and lucanis!

but illario is decoration. he's the prize poodle, and even if poodles were bred to be working dogs, nobody will ever pick him to protect the house over the german shepherd that regularly mauls intruders. anyways the analogy is getting away from me. the point i'm trying to make is that i want illario to have a different kind of jealousy/hatred that's not just over 'being bad at killing' but also an arrogant loathing for everyone around him that is getting harder to hide, because they've forgotten he can bite and is just itching to rip someone's jugular out. illario is very good at hiding his family resemblance to caterina, while lucanis suffers under his grandmother's, and his own, reputation.

[virtualmish]

This guy again...

[glassedplanets]

these did not start out being AU sketches but i guess they are now

nami suffers a tremendously rare loss in this betting pool because she was sooooooo sure that the blockheads getting their shit straight (lol) would involve a cataclysmic event and did not even remotely consider that they'd sort things out mostly like adults AND ALSO act more or less the same about it. robin just Knows. luffy didn't participate because "it wouldn't be fair" (<- thinks they've been together since about a month after they met) (is both incorrect and way more correct than anyone else knows) (including zoro and sanji)

[importantandunavoidable]

legally obligated to post this every time i use it

[doodleswithangie]

more from my au, in which stan and bill have a reluctant agreement to build the portal (x)

bonus thought: they always tie in their card games, because they both know when the other is cheating and when the other is letting them win

[Image description: Fanart of Bill Cipher and Stanley Pines from "Gravity Falls." Alt text is provided and copied below the cut. End ID]

Copied Alt Text

Image one: Stan wears his Mr. Mystery outfit in the Shack, complete with an eyepatch and magic 8-ball cane. Bill nudges him, saying, "Ooh, eyepatch? How flattering!" Stan snarks back, "Can it, cyclops."

Image two: Bill and Stan float in a mindscape similar to Ford's, except they're playing cards on folding chairs and drink Pitt Colas.

Image three: In front of the broken portal, Stan sits on a toolbox with Journal 1 and other documents scattered in front of him. Bill hovers over his shoulder.

End Copied Alt Text

[humming-fly]

Wonder what it's like to feel grass under your feet for the first time in your life. Wonder how it feels knowing you'll be the one to destroy it.

[eilraee]

I am not fully satisfied with a dictator Anxiety so I drew her myself

And also Anxiety and Fear are besties with siblings dynamic and I came up with their duo name idea that is untranslatable wordplay Трясучка (basically it's a mashup of the words "shaking" and "little bitch")

[lucabyte]

i feel like people are sleeping on the occam's razor situation of how buckwild it is to outright accuse a guy of being a clone of your friend even if you DO have a lot of circumstantial evidence. there's other options is what im saying. they could just be like. a guy. that's a sensible deduction. you should explore that deduction. ignore my shirt that reads I <3 RED HERRINGS.

i still think odile has the correct theory on lock but she's smart enough to know it needs like... a real smoking gun to be able to bring it up without sounding insane.

anyway. (mirabelle voice) i know its rude to speculate but has anyone else noticed the grieving? they seem to be grieving. does anyone have any thoughts on the grieving? i have some thoughts on the grieving.

[feelo-fick]

it can't be too hard right?

it's easy not to think about things, he tells me i don't think all the time! wait...

—

a scene from a fic that i have no clue if ill finish, let alone post, but look i made fanart of my own thing that doesnt even exist :D