#i need to.... i need to..... I NEED TO

[iceicewifey]

I NEED TO DRAW SHIP ART

[tenderwatches]

sometimes you need dialogue tags and don't want to use the same four

[auxoubliettes]

[codecicle-archive]

Guys I'm so glad everyone loves hit JRWI campaign: The Suckening so much. 12 thousand notes on just a thumbnail that's so cool. Anyone think about emizel pussy-out post revival

[cafeyote]

me and gang at the haunted house

[cadaverousdecay]

❤️

[visenyaism]

Had to ban the phrase “tricky dick” from my classroom during watergate lesson because saying the word dick in front of 30 fifteen year olds is like lighting a bomb and throwing it through the doorway but now they’re just calling him Richard the Treacherous like they’re all medieval peasants. gonna lose it

[catlaila]

justice for kabru. they put my man in the wrong genre. bro was meant to be playing psychological games with light yagami and instead he’s playing yaoi mind tennis with a blonde himbo

[tjalexandernyc]

if you're subscribed to Microsoft word, you probably received an email recently saying they're upping their prices. Like, a lot. ($9.99/month instead of $6.99)

guess what though? you can log into your account, click Cancel Subscription, and get the option to continue your subscription at the same price WITHOUT their bullshit AI.

That's right, the new, higher price is actually a different subscription that includes AI that everyone is being opted into by force! What a cool and fun product that clearly everyone wants.

you can also choose to buy Word 2024 without AI for a single lump sum that will be yours in perpetuity, with no updates, for one computer.

Check your subscription if you need Word for work! Don't get duped into paying for something you might not even want

[redrook]

I spent a lot of time handcuffed and in a cage in high school, for a charity bit the grocery store I worked at would do

the bit was that I was "put in jail for having too big a heart" and customers could donate to my bail to get me out (and the money would go to a children's hospital or something)

now. I was very clearly a teenaged employee handcuffed inside a large cage. and I would honestly tell people that I had been in there for hours. and people would say, that's terrible! that's awful! and I would show them my wrists red from the tight handcuffs, and say but I'm sooooooo close to making bail.

and then they would dump some cash in the basket, I'd thank them, and they'd walk away.

and every so often, one of the managers would come by and collect some of the cash, so I could keep being soooooo close to making bail.

I was very good with this bit. Parents with small kids would pay $5-10 if I told their children I had been placed in jail for not cleaning my room/doing my homework, etc. For people in their 20s, I'd threaten that I was very bad at playing the harmonica, but I WOULD play it and we'd all suffer unless they paid me. and for the most amount of money, older men in suits would almost always pay $20s if I avoided eye contact and stammered a lot.

eventually, the managers started to feel bad because I was in the cage so fucking long and often, that I'd need someone to brace me when I got out because I'd have no feeling in my legs. wobbling like a newborn giraffe.

but I would also rake in at LEAST $100 an hour in charity.

so they were like, hey champ. can we, uh, give you a pillow to sit on. in the cage. would you like a pillow so you're not just sitting on a cold metal slab. can we give you a pillow.

and I had to explain to them that if they gave me a pillow, people would think I was more comfortable, so they wouldn't feel as bad, so I'd bring in less money.

the compromise was that they'd bring me a nice coffee every couple hours, which I would have to try to block with my body from the customers.

all this money went to charity. that's what the money was for. it's what was on the sign. but how much they were willing to pay was very contingent on how comfortable I looked, never mind the fact that I was still a teenaged employee handcuffed inside a cage.

and out of the dozens of shifts I did this on, not ONCE did ANYONE say, hey kid I'm going to go talk to your manager because what the fuck is going on here. they would just drop money in the basket, and I'd thank them and sip from my secret drink.

I actually had people get MAD at me that I told them I was far away from bail, they donated like $15, and then 20 minutes I got let out because my shift ended.

again. the money was for charity. it was on the sign that was very clearly placed on the upper half of my cage.

so yeah. even when people think they mean well. people can be really, really fucking stupid.

[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.

[beholdthemem]

My fellow bitches under 5'5. Whatever the money, do not take a job working at a middle school. A fellow adult tried to put me in detention last month and would NOT give up until I showed her my badge proving Yes, The School Hired Me To Work Here. It's not meant for people our height.

[ef-1]

"tryna strike a cord and its probably a minorrrrrrr" is in the history books now ft THE Serena Williams

[junglejim4322]

Something that I have noticed is I know almost nobody my age that goes to a food pantry. I know people who regularly run out of money for food and in general have to eat an unsuitable diet because that’s what they can afford and they still don’t go to a food bank, im not sure if it’s because they’re embarrassed or maybe if you didn’t grow up going you don’t know much about it but if you’re financially struggling I really recommend it. And look into other options for food assistance too like community fridges and gardens and other programs that can assist you, where I live Salvation Army pays for an allotted amount of grocery delivery for low income people every month, in the summer farmers take excess produce to the library to be taken by anyone who needs it, etc. There are a LOT of resources for free food that you can look into especially if you are literally not eating because of your financial situation

[alexxuun]

Old man Viktor trying to impress young Jayce so bad he pulled multiple muscles and had to lie down after.