#and probably never will be

[jcforsapphics]

save me canonically bisexual buck. canonically bisexual buck, save me

[megan0013]

My evil plan worked! Fear play, Professor and Student, or Bachelor Auction

(Okay technically you already did the second one but I'm sticking with it)

(explicit)

Barbara fails to win Walter at the annual teacher auction. Don’t worry. She makes it up to him.

[safifonhasstrel]

If you don't have literal trauma from being bullied, then you just don't GET thank you aimee and cassandra the same way.

[sheshallfromtimetotime]

A friend and I went to the beach today, and gosh, I need to spend more of my life in water.

[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.

[cronchy-baguette]

double posting this comic bc tbh it deserves its own post.... thinking about how elphie was definitely crying after she runs off to hide somewhere following popular... what do the two of them think about afterwards....

[mammalidentifier]

Well, that’s length-wise rather than height-wise, but yes! That would be the giant river otter (Pteronura brasiliensis), fellow countrymen of mine!

In fact, saying they’re 170 cm (5’7”) from head to tail is lowballing it a little. Some individuals as long as 180 cm (5’11”) have been recorded! Which is longer than I am tall 😔

You might have noticed that giant otters have a bit of a big cat-like look about themselves. That’s the origin of their name in Brazilian Portuguese, ariranha, which is a term from the Tupi-Guarani language and means “river jaguar”. And, just like ground jaguars, giant otters are apex predators as well: they mainly eat fish, but will hunt anything from snakes, turtles and even small caimans if given the opportunity!

Besides their size, giant otters have other traits that set them apart from their smaller cousins. For one, unlike most mustelids, they’re social animals who live in familial groups of up to twenty individuals, which whom they communicate constantly through a variety of different noises. Also, unlike other species of otter, whose tails are thick at the base and pointy at the end, giant otters’ tails also start out with a thick base, but they end up flat, which helps propel them through the water. The interesting thing about it, however, it’s that it’s not flat in an horizontal way, like the tails of other semiaquatic mammals such as beavers and platypuses. It’s flat vertically, not unlike the tail of a newt!

Source of the 2nd image: @resgateariranha on Instagram

[guiiay]

yeah... yeah

[tanjir0se]

Disclaimer these are just a small sampling of some possible writer traits I’ve noticed either in myself or in fics I read. Also consider a rb for sample size !

[ilovedthestars]

there really are few emotions i find more compelling in a story than "you should be afraid of me. please don't be afraid of me"

[astr0disiac]

"toxic yaoi" this "password" that

THIS being one of stan's lowest moments is the saddest thing i've seen and no one has talked about it what the freak :(

[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."

[collaredkittyboy]

[holycrimin]

that one Laios meme but with the 12 bros, saw the rise one and got inspired <33

(don't tag as t-cest)

original under the cut!

Original by @/sweepswoop_ on Twitter

[thatskindarough]

Ice cream parlor (December 2023)

[kosmogrl]

once I stop being scared of everything it's over for everyone