#i need to do tags.....

[word-count-bullet-count]

I've been seeing a lot of knight posts recently. pretty great

[cafeyote]

me and gang at the haunted house

[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.

[zdrivesavior]

#ZDRIVESAVIOR : a study in love as a double - edged sword , a genius mind surrounded by rot , revolutionary activism , growing up 30 before you're 13 , magic and science have their consequences , & how to rebuild after you've lost it all & then some.

gifs are from here.

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21+ only. selective. MDNI. rewound in time by hoops. black , 28 , pst.

misfits ( mains ) : @zaunipure | viktor + @gunstruction | caitlyn + @pnchlined | vi + @getjinxecl | jinx

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RULES:

⌛ this is a private, independent, & highly selective roleplay blog for fortiche's ekko from arcane. this blog is show & headcanon - based only. i have not played LoL , nor am i very interested in the game , though that may change in the future. i'm black, queer & my activity will be low / sporadic. patience is key.

⌛i will not tolerate any racism, transphobia, terf / serf / transmed scum, xenophobia and/or other traits of general walking shit stains. that being said , i portray ekko as transmasc. keep your drama to yourself. reblog as text, trim your posts, do not use me as a meme resource or hound me for replies, ect. 

⌛this blog is extremely selective and tentatively multi-ship. i want to give adequate attention to each ship & make friends with my partners. if you're following me with the sole intent of shipping, you're gonna get a rude wake up call. i do practice ship exclusivity and expect the same of my shipping partners.

⌛no underage content whatsoever. ekko is an adult canonically & in all verses and i will not be portraying him as a child in any way.

⌛all triggering topics will be tagged as trigger / ; i.e. violence /. i will not be tagging spoilers of season 2. if you reblog anything having to do with orcas / killer whales, please tag it.

⌛personal blogs will be blocked on sight. please use discretion when following. i will not be following or interacting with anyone below the age of 18+, 21+ is preferred. my rules are subject to be added, subtracted, or modified as i see fit. the icon border i use is from here.

[qiinamii]

new guy in the Express

bonus:

adding more to the whimsy

[skulkingfoxes]

The Selkie and Her Family

[mybreadsmybutters]

when i was a kid i wanted to be a famous youtuber like dan and phil so that people would gay ship me with my irl best friend and we would be sooo weirded out by it and laugh and make videos joking about it but secretly it would make her realize her repressed gay crush on me and i'd help her through her gay crisis and then we would have a sickeningly sweet sappy romance and read fanfiction about ourselves together... anyways just found out she's married to a guy in the mafia now so i probably don't have a chance

[bacchuschucklefuck]

couldnt draw my thang for mid-autumn so treated myself to a calne redesign instead

[molabuddy]

SORRY. HELP ME. sorry for posting about sea creature sex again but this diagram of octopus mating fuckinf kills me...

shes just chilling. and why is he doing that at arms length like shes gonna kill him (she actually might. a lot of female octopus eat the male after mating) . and why is he staring at me like that. this feels really awkward guys

[stealingpotatoes]

I was absolutely befuddled when I saw someone say they loved your Eunuch so I went on your page and saw it was your cat and I was like "oh okay that makes sense now." I must say your Faithful Eunuch is exceedingly adorable.

LOL honestly it's really funny seeing how much tumblr loves my cat bc he has that effect on people irl too, including but not limited to the vets

[hinamie]

happy gojoday to all who celebrate

[demaparbat-hp]

Slow mornings in Ba Sing Se.

I needed something soft today, so here's a little sketch for @nerdylizj's breathtaking fic Forgetting is a kind of mercy.

[paintedcrows]

It is imperative to me that Bill and Stan do torrid Duchess Approves roleplay and argue about character motivations

[loserrofthecentury]

I think the funniest thing about the rhetoric that butchfemme is somehow heteronormative is that a lot of the things butches are called heteronormative for, men don’t even do.

[aliteralchicken]

sexualizing your fav characters? Nah mate you got me wrong, I’m asexualizing them, that one’s demi now

[transformers-earthspark]

IMPORTANT: TUMBLR HAS MADE A DEAL WITH MIDJOURNEY/OPENAI.

YOUR ART AND IMAGES ON TUMBLR ARE BEING USED TO TRAIN AI MODELS.

The opt-in is automatic, but you can turn it off in settings.

Go to "Blog Settings" -> "Visibility" -> "Third-Party Sharing" and turn on "Prevent third-party sharing for [blog]". (This post shows how to do it on browser and on mobile.) You need to do this with every sideblog. (Note: The option in settings might not appear if your app hasn't updated yet. You can still opt out via browser.)

Spread the word. Everyone on Tumblr needs to know about this.