#not sure how to tag feels

[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.

[hinamie]

subject, specimen, spectacle;

should i say that you're dead?

[sabertoothwalrus]

does science experiments on you (homoerotically)

[fictionadventurer]

How did Treasure Planet manage to come up with the greatest aesthetic in all human history? Victorian elegance plus space-age flair, with just enough dirt and grime and wear and tear to make it feel real? A combination of traditional and computer animation that perfectly embodies the movie's blend of old and futuristic? How does it get any better than that?

[latenightsundayblues]

Or however it is this is supposed to work

[bluewolfangel01]

I love the unhinged idea that if Mc is angry or dissapointed with the demons, that they would create a circle of salt around themselves and just stay in it

And no matter the immense combined powers that Diavolo, Barbatos, and the Brothers hold, they ain't getting past the salt circle no matter what they do

Salt is the most powerful thing in the Devildom, confirmed

[rendevok]

Moon dance 🌕✨

[xxplastic-cubexx]

graph

bonus:

[stars-obsession-pit]

A “minor” lab accident caused Jack and Maddie to be knocked backwards through the portal into the Ghost Zone.

It didn’t take too long for Danny to notice and go in after them in the Specter Speeder, but time in the Zone can be wonky. He has no idea how long it’s been from their perspective, nor how much chaos they could have caused with that time.

So he went in fully expecting to quite possibly emerge in a giant clusterfuck of a battlefield.

Except, it turns out their chaos went in a different direction.

After being forced to interact with ghosts in new contexts, they chilled out about the ghost hunting thing. Instead, they settled into performing more anthropological and ecological studies of the ghosts.

But they’re still them, so they’re the ontological opposite of “subtle” or “low-key”.

They may not be chasing ghosts around guns blazing, but they are chasing them around pestering them with questions. Or stalking them around taking notes on behavior. Or just generally causing unmatched chaos in other ways.

Apparently Maddie ended up leading a revolution in another haunt that was ruled similarly to Aragorn’s, almost becoming a cult leader in the process. Jack broke into Pariah’s Keep and nearly woke up the sealed king to “ask for directions” (or possibly did wake him up; Danny’s heard conflicting rumors. He doesn’t think that that could have happened without anyone noticing, but with his parents he’s never sure).

Danny thinks he heard some Observants mutterings about an “interdimensional incident” too, but he isn’t touching that with a ten foot pole.

[ninja-knox-ur-sox-off]

Aroace Sonic pt 12

Y'know what's funny is they actually were fighting

[hinamie]

wonder if they know what he's on about

[myfairstarlight]

just thinking about how distraught mel looks when she sees the hextech weapons after promising jayce she wouldn't let the council corrupt his dreams, essentially making all her efforts vain

and viktor's blank face as he sees the blueprints for the weapons, showing that jayce broke his promise not once, by reviving him with the hexcore, but twice.

idk, something about paths diverging or whatever. They left him alone unsupervised for like one day and he does this shit

[khaoala]

i really like giffing. i know we talk constantly about people not appreciating gifmakers anymore and how the numbers are dropping and everything which is true, and maybe it's because i'm relatively new at this, but seeing little things that i want to have in my blog edited in a way that i find pretty and it has the captions the way i like, it makes me feel genuinely good even if it doesn't get a lot of notes bc ultimately, i did it for me and i'm happy with it.

[ohmyminsung]

jinyoung ✧ GOT7 killing voice

bonus !!

[vyunok-obyknovenniy]

Get ready with me to build a giant wooden horse

Did I just spend 3 days drawing that eyeliner meme? Yes. Yes, I did.

I'm very late to this year's inktober but nevertheless I'm here))) I decided to combine the official prompt list with the classicstober here, specifically prompt 15 - dagger and prompt 20 - Odysseus. I don't know, if I will draw any other prompts, but this one was fun and I hope you like it :)

The dagger was based on Mycenaean daggers in the national archeological museum in Athens and some Mycenaean dagger reproductions I saw, the scene depicted is Odysseus hunting Athena' boar. I hc this dagger was either a gift from Athena herself or from Autolycus, I haven't decided yet.

[ivyithink]

when your self-worth is tied intrinsically to your usefulness and your brain stops working :(