#I'm an old

[ktempestbradford]

It hit me just today that the dude I watched run around like a goofball on TV some time ago has near-grown children with one of the people he was running around like a goofball with. I witnessed them fall for each other (well, kinda). That was... just a few years back, surely? Not long enough for them to make multiple whole humans and raise them, surely?

This is worse than when I opened Disney+ the other day and was attacked by a banner telling me to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Lion King. How very dare they!

[scarcelyodd]

It's my 12 year anniversary on Tumblr 🥳

[adickaboutspoons]

Hi! Not to sound too ignorant here, but can I ask about the "certain cultural connotations of a slight blond boy who has been lashed to wooden rails and bludgeoned because he's queer" that you mentioned in your tags re: the post about Stede's childhood abuse? I can't seem to make the right connection ^^'

no worries - you're not ignorant. I mean, I didn't even mention the specific culture to which I was alluding. What I was referencing was the murder of Matthew Shepard in 1998.

[queer-bi-cliche]

I dislike greatly when fandoms become a jerk off circle around the real people playing in the fandom.

This is currently targeted at the Critical Role/Dimension 20 crowd but you know what? All fandoms. Keep it in your pants, people. Do I understand being attracted to them? Sure and same. But the amount of drooling over people who are definitely not there for that disturbs me.

I'd like to be excluded from this narrative.

[tehloserprince]

is your username misspelled or was the ‘teh’ an artistic choice, or does it stand for something else

It's intentional, ha ha. It used to be a thing, back when I was in college. The "loser prince" is a Katamari Damacy reference, and my bff @dcderringer using it to refer to me a few times (also in college).

My Tumblr account is pretty old, so it reflects a time when I was using this username across multiple platforms. I still use some variations of it for gaming, and sometimes I'll "claim" the username in other places, but these days, I'm using a few different screen names.

Suppose I could change this one, but I kinda like the nostalgia of it for now. Makes me smile.

[fluffynexu]

what does gpoy mean

imma show my age with this answer, but it means Gratuitous Picture of Yourself

which... basically is saying "it me" or "lol relatable"

a tumblr friend back in the 2010s suggested that i make gpoy a tag on my blog, and i've been too lazy to change it since :'D

[archangelbeth]

*reads another thing with labeling someone as a "chad"*

...I'm sorry, kids, I'm sorry. I went to school with a Chad. He was, uh... Not a jock? I mean, a nice kid, seemed reasonably compassionate for a boy in the 80s, had some homelife difficulties. But people seem to be saying that "chads" are... jocks? Or something? Superior to... something else?

And I keep thinking of my former classmate in the 80s, and I hope he's having a good life, but wow, at that age, he was definitely not the meme.

•dodders off to go be Old•

[gongyussy]

good thing from jp twitter this week is queen of old man yaoi michiru sonoo discovering the term old man yaoi

update: somehow it got impossibly more wholesome

quick translation: おかえり: welcome home あ 終わった 終わった: ahhh, it's over! it's done! コーヒー? お茶?: coffee? tea? コ~ヒ~ ありがと: coffee, thank you~ ネクタイレア★★ ネクタイ取るレア★★★★: seeing him with a tie on, rarity level ★★, seeing him take a tie off, rarity level ★★★★ にあうな~: it suits him~

also please do follow: AraigumaSha: sensei's twitter account marureviere: maru, who does such valuable work highlighting bl manga for an international audience

[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.

[archangelbeth]

(I, an Old, only wish I was some sort of alien species. Preferably one without crappy knees.)

y'all need to stop being weird about people's ages. The sooner you stop thinking of people over 30 as some sort of alien species, the better your life will be

[captainbee66]

I miss the era of the internet where everyone had an evil alter ego/character that would show up on their channel, just to be silly, that eventually got a lot of lore from the fandom for no reason. It was a simpler time.

[annalyticall]

My new favorite excuse for not jumping on new trends or bandwagons is 'I'm 30.' No more explanation needed because anyone under 30 just thinks I'm old and everyone over 30 understands implicitly

[hypertechnica]

is this anything

[symphonyofsilence]

Let the poor man rest.

[paintedcrows]

When asked why they still haven't kicked the bucket after decades: Ford insists he beat Death at chess. Stanley insists he kicked Death's ass in a Denny's parking lot

[tyanis]

Kinda feel like there's some untapped meme/reaction image potential from old horror movie trailers...