#do you get it??? do you??? get it????

[awildtei]

people who think kevaaron are boring just don't get it i'm afraid. like:

imagine you are the best at what you do and everyone worships you and/or uses you as their focal point in life and/or projects so hard onto you that you're not sure who you are when you're alone... except for this one guy. this one guy has seen you at your worst, drunk and messy and crying and throwing up and panicking and feeling sorry for yourself. he's seen you at your bitchiest and most insufferable. he knows exactly how broken you are. and all along he's rolled his eyes at you and been like 'this asshole? really? this is the guy everyone is always tripping over themselves to impress/save/psychologically torture? he's Just Some Dude (derogatory)... could never be me.' he doesn't idolize you. he thinks you being the best at exy is, like, at most fifth on the list of most interesting things about you. he lets you talk about history and actually listens. he doesn't think you're pathetic for grieving your abuser. he looks at you and sees you. nothing more. (nothing less). when you get closer it's because he's interested in you (kevin) and not You (Kevin Day). when he falls in love with you there are no expectations to fail to meet because he. knows. you. all of you. and somehow wants you anyway.

and imagine you have been 'the less interesting twin' since you found out you were a twin at all. no one sees you, no one cares. you're filled with anger and resentment and keep being told you're in the wrong for feeling that way. that you should let it go and move on. your abuse pales in comparison to that of the people around you, and as such is dismissed and forgotten. you want to be someone so badly you are killing yourself in the process. you are not talented like your brother and you don't have his memory but you have this. your two hands. your hard work. a need so profound to amount to something that it keeps you going even though you're exhausted all. the. time. and no one cares... except for this one guy. he chews you out on the court but admires and respects how much effort you put into everything you do. he doesn't think you're weak for needing your weekly dose of dust. he doesn't think your ambition is silly or pointless. he doesn't think you're stupid for grieving your abuser. when you get closer it's not because you're the less compelling half of a fascinating whole. it's because he finds you interesting all on your own. he looks at you and sees you. nothing more. (nothing less). he doesn't flinch at your sharp edges. he calls you an asshole but smiles like it's a compliment. when he falls in love with you it's not with a softer, more talented, more palatable version of you. it's with you (aaron) and not you ('the normal one') because he. knows. you. all of you. and somehow wants you anyway.

[bookwyrminspiration]

I can behave normally around books

[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.

[antennatoheaven]

[captainjonnitkessler]

>Join a union

>Hear people constantly complaining that the current union leadership is super corrupt, it's all just the same ten guys making all the decisions in secret and nobody else in the union ever gets to know what's going on

>Go to the monthly union meetings that are completely open to all 1200 union members

>The only attendees are the same ten guys every month, giving detailed reports about everything that's going on

[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

[ravenkings]

[theblob1958]

people are saying do it scared, but you also gotta do it alone. you'll miss out on so much you want to do if you wait til someone will do it with you. do it scared and do it alone.

[some-pers0n]

I'm always entertained by people doing those "canon VS fanon" memes where both are misunderstanding characters to such a violent degree 'cause like

[idontmindifuforgetme]

are u ever sick w longing. and i don't just mean romantic longing. i mean longing for a place you barely get to see, longing for friends you no longer have, longing for feelings you might have left behind in your childhood, longing for creativity, longing for a rich and more expansive life, longing for less inhibition. longing for more passion. longing for ur life to be so incandescent w something it thaws all the frost in ur bones. are u ever so consumed w it it rends ur heart in two. do u understand me

[vulpinesaint]

quiz enjoyers! i am now inviting you to come create something in my workshop❕

[aretarers]

mantra when you fuck up is "i'm in my early 20s it's literally not a big deal"

[ered]

Here’s my take on the whole audio books vs. reading:

Oral tradition of storytelling predates written ones by millennias, and honestly, which one you like is just a personal preference.

The actual difference is

when listening, you have no idea how to write characters’ names

when reading, you have no idea how to pronounce characters’ names

hope this helps!

[hexjulia]

i don't even know what to say. Apparently my brother has been sending doja cat (singer) recipe links as instagram dms for literal YEARS now because he doesn't know an easy way to bookmark them in the app. Which led to an attempt to save recipes by just linking them to celebrities who he assumes aren't checking their dms anyways. this lifehack got him blocked by mac demarco and lorde however. Doja never blocked or responded so he just continued to use her inbox to save insta recipes. FOR YEARS.

[lazylittledragon]

can't believe we're all adults being forced into the club penguin level of censorship in 2024