#i tagged you

[trickytripp1]

𝕆𝕙 𝕝𝕠𝕠𝕜, 𝔻𝕌ℂ𝕂𝕊!!

Duckie studys, you can thank @sulfadimethoxine for them.

[fangbangerghoul]

New banner! Because I enjoy making them and I love American Dad.

Today the banner reflects the cringe I feel when I share my wips sometimes. I love fanfiction and I love it when others share and write fanfiction but occasionally it's hard to get over that small bump that tells me 'Should you really be writing that?'

Hopefully everyone's week has been good so far and the rest of the week gets even better! Today's WIP will not be a snippet of my DD2 fic but something else entirely that I have started working on shamelessly.

Tagging: @interplanet--janet, @a-cosmic-elf, @bearlytolerant, @lisa-and-shadow, and @therealgchu

WIP snippet under the cut. If you've noticed some of the posts I have been making recently that are not Dragon's Dogma 2 related, you might be able to guess what this fanfic is but if not oh well because I refuse to say it out loud until I am alone with it in a dark forest, and it demands me to.

WIP!

Time had passed while she relaxed and felt the healing waters envelop her body. The wear and tear from travel almost drifted away completely until something faint had caught her senses. There was another body that softly approached within the same side of the hot springs as her and the tension that had melted away slowly returned to her core. Kiichi stayed silent as she watched for any sudden movements, and she did not put it pass anyone to try to collect the bounty on her head while she was in her most vulnerable state.

The water softly rippled towards her and that was when she saw the person who had sunken into the warm pool next to her. His hair was long and black as midnight and those unforgettable crimson eyes stared ahead not daring to peek her way. She was surprised to notice that he had climbed in as well, something unexpected from her knowledge of him. She saw behind him laid a few of his items, confirming he was also undressed, including his cloak decorated with red feathering clouds against a black void of fabric.

“Happy birthday.” The familiar voice broke the silence. Its sound bringing back core memories along with it and a vortex of grief and anger. Her teeth dug into her bottom lip to calm herself from the onslaught of feelings and a hint of iron touched her tongue.

“It's surprising that you didn't appear with a kunai to my neck to say that.” When she rose out the water enough to speak, she tried to keep back the hiss in her voice, but it seeped into the space between them against all her effort. The sloshing of water between her motions were the only thing that softened the aggression in her voice.

He did not respond to her question, nor did he look directly at her still. His eyes were fixed on the window that opened to the mountains ahead and she allowed herself to relax knowing he wasn't going to immediately attack. They simultaneously leaned onto the stones that were against their backs and she felt the stone scrape at her softening skin. She used the uncomfortable feeling to her advantage to stay on guard for his next move or words. Even for him this was unusual territory for the two of them.

[meowthiroth]

bored now. here's some old art of my fursona

[robyn-i-guess]

liking someone platonically is so embarrassing like. yeah i admire you. yeah i think about you all the time. yeah i look forward to every time i see you even if it's only for a minute. yeah it's all platonic and yeah i couldn't explain this because it'd sound romantic. fucking hell

[mroddmod]

the queen of the disco or whatever

[mearchy]

my favorite genre of fictional character is like "i am terrifying to almost everyone, i'm very good at killing, i can endure anything, i've become exceptionally good at playing into my reputation, and if you try to give me positive social interaction i will react with confusion and cower in a corner like an abused animal. and i may try to shoot you. but there is also a chance i may imprint on you like a feral dog receiving its first loving touch! good luck."

[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.

[tawnysoup]

Finally now that the comic is fully public on comicfury, I get to share it with all of you here, too <3

If you enjoyed, please consider supporting by buying a PDF of the comic on itch.io: https://tawnysoup.itch.io/home-in-the-woods

[color-ns]

Sometimes tweeter people know their stuff- this is the right kind of toxic angst I want to read.

[irate-iguana]

For those who don’t know, Elon Musk has recently been directing his assholery towards Wikipedia — calling them ‘Wokepedia’ due to the amount they spend on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, and calling for people to stop giving them money “until they restore balance to their editing authority” —, now is a great time to consider donating to Wikipedia!

[antennatoheaven]

[chessb0r3d]

Analysis so bad you don't even know what it's talking about anymore.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Knowledge Revenge.

[vulpinesaint]

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

[fox-bright]

I am never going to be able to leave Reddit.

[12neonlit-stage]

you're allowed to discuss and work together, reblog for a higher sample size or something

You have 1 week, good luck!