#how's it going?

[constantlyfalling]

melting in the sunset

[outtahp]

it's been a minute since i checked in here huh

merry crisis and all that, heh

[catalisst]

[michelleplayswithfire]

NOW THIS IS WHAT I SHOULD'VE DONE FOR HIS 30TH BIRTHDAY BACK IN JUNE

but the template fell onto my "lap" (top, that is) last month or so

there's a small backstory

i'm in a facebook fan group about george and there were a couple of women who got themselves together to come up with an idea to make a scrapbook of everyone they can gather around in the group to say a few kind words and there were pics and stickers and it looks really nice from what i've seen

but i didn't participate because i was still kinda in a mood at the time in regards to him not touring the US and the karens of the group being, well karens (most of the people in the group are either stans like me or really creepy-ish karens who are way too old for him, but whatever)

and being that it was close to summer and i was busy with work, i didn't participate

one of the two women wanted handed it out to one of george's friends at the town they're at and the friend was going to place it on his doorstep

flash forward to sometime around christmas the word got out that he got it and he loved it but the reaction was a little private and i felt bad for maybe 1% that i didn't participate but in turn it was actually all for the best and i thought something good would go my way on my end in the future (fingers crossed)

but this was something i REALLY wanted to do and i'm glad i did this

[dilaneko]

Actually thinking to relive my tumblr account after I've finally quit DeviantArt for good.

Want to give tumblr a chance again, probably will start dumping my old/new arts here from twitter everyday. I bet it will get zero interaction and tumblr will try to hide my arts again out of void (tumblr hates my art somehow), but I don't expect much

[elvenderelict]

greeting: @emilesmuseassembly

It was a little surreal, the vallaslin that seemed a touch too luminous, the stark white hair and the hard lines of obsidian metal. Spend too much time in Darktown and you get used to everything and everyone being a little shabby, cast in ruddy colors through the smog, but somehow this fellow was exempt from that. Tabris got hit pretty hard in that last fight — there were auras tearing color across his vision, so that could be what was making the elf seem so Maker-forsaken bright.

Tabris was sitting on a bench outside the old taproom where the arena was set up. The clamor still managed to penetrate through the limestone, filling the backlane. He realized he was squinting at a stranger in a way that made him look stupid, so he dropped his head back down and let the blood continue to drain into the handful of gauze he was pinching his nose with. Given that the elf was armed, Seysil assumed he would rather fight than bet. Herbert was his man, in that case.

“Looging for Herberd? Go righd fru the bagk door, nobody'll stob you.” His words were nasal, almost incomprehensible through the gauze, but he hiked his thumb in the appropriate direction and hoped that would be enough.

[yume-fanfare]

meow meowmeow

miau miau :3

[theterrorreversebang]

Hello Reverse Bang ARTISTS - time to check in!

You'll find an email with a link to the check-in form in your inbox (check that spam folder, and if it's still not there let us mods know!)

Check-ins are due before Midnight GMT on Sunday, April 16th.

[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

[loycos]

"You're the only one I have left..."

[cordspaghetti]

really factual recounting with no embellishments whatsoever

[lapdogchase]

i think weight loss ads should be illegal and im not kidding

[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.

[princehendir]

Everyone clap for non consensual body modification everybody loves a character whose body has been altered against their will

[pouletpourri]

"You just have to look closely."