#but I never was!

[cogitrot]

I got my first Making Your Name 7!

[verifiablebot]

'this property says it has nine acres but those neighbours look pretty clo-'

oh.

ohhhhhhhhh no

[amartworks]

had a fun experience on the subway the other day

[puppppppppy]

filipina miku!! my mom helped me with her outfit ^_^

[cobble-stone]

[twinliches]

shoutout to the guy who after unsuccessfully hitting on my sister and being politely declined asked her "is it okay if i ask your brother instead" and when she said yes gave me a long and searching look before sighing and going "no. i am not drunk enough to go for a dude. but you look like an angel" happy bisexual pride to this man and this man only. hope you figure it out soon king

[duckysprouts]

when ur just a funky little skater punk hedgehog

(idk if u can tell but only his bangs are straightened, he has braids)

[kuntniss]

actually that no punctuation plot hole ooc wattpad fanfic written by that 12 year old will ALWAYS be better than character ai. and i love that 12 year old btw

[spitblaze]

[guy who doesnt watch shows voice] yeah ive been meaning to watch that show

[scramratz]

[foldingfittedsheets]

Back in 2017 I signed up for one of the Cards Against Humanity sillies and did their Cards Against Humanity Saves America. Basically they were like fuck Tr*mp and his border wall and used the funds from the campaign to buy land and to make all 150,000 contributors part owners of said land across the US/Mexico border.

It was fun and silly and I got a little certificate.

Today I got an email that Elon Musk illegally annexed that land for SpaceX and that CAH are suing him over it. So possibly I’ll get like $100 if they manage to win a lawsuit and stick it to Musk. It’s like even more bang for my original buck.

[clearlydusty]

Bro thinks she could just thug it out

[atomiccryptid]

Ok, so you've been isekai'd to the dnd world and may or may not die due to the class you've been assigned. Better question. Are you human? (spinner wheel of all dnd5e species)

[ivyblooms]

The funniest homophobia I ever experienced was a Mormon lady at my work telling me she would accept me being gay because we have to get along as coworkers but I really should consider not being gay because gay people have sex like animals (especially gay men) and she just couldn't stop thinking about it and how gross we are. She started really getting distressed, near tears, and saying 'I can't stop thinking about it. I can't stop." over and over and miming some kind of sex acts with her hands and I was like ?????? What is happening???? One of the other Mormon ladies had to come over and pat her on the back and help her sit down to help her calm down and our boss gave her the afternoon off due to being too upset to work.

[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.