#that was probably for the best

[littleperilstories]

👩🏻‍🤝‍👨🏽 Around how many characters do you have total?

Thank you, Elli, for the ask! From this ask game.

👩🏻‍🤝‍👨🏽 Around how many characters do you have total?

uuhhhhh...

Is this a thing people do? 😅 Count their characters? How do I count? POV characters? All characters?

27 counted below, but like...there are more that live in my head?

TPOT - 10 - Will, Bree, Jamie, Colette, Geoff, Hatchett, Michaelson, Bulwell, Verity, [my buddy you haven't met yet]

TCC - 4 - Ash, Laramie, Ivy, Douglas

F&F - 4 - Fen, Freddie, Bridget, Kain

Nano novel that I sometimes mention but don't blog about here - 9 in Book 1 - NJ, OO, KP, RD the younger, KT, BA, RD the elder, LG, IR (I bolded the mains) (edited to add: only two of them are pov characters in Book 1! Not all six lmao)

[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.

[woman-respecter]

the incels should fuck eachother and fujoshis get to watch if they want. solves the issue of male lonliness with a little bonus for women as reparations or something.

[liquidstar]

If my mom sees a significant amount of blood she gets lightheaded, and has fainted on some occasions. Once it happened when we were kids, I wasn't there to witness it but I heard the story from my dad. Basically my brothers, around 7 or 8 at the time, were playing outside while my mom was making their lunch, and she accidentally cut her finger. It wasn't anything serious, but it drew a fair bit of blood and she passed out. My dad saw this and rushed over, but he didn't really know what to do so he just sort of started slapping her to wake her up (not recommended, but he had no idea and panicked)

At that exact moment my brothers both came in from playing, and all they saw was our mom unconscious on the floor and our dad slapping her. So, like, without even saying a word to each other they both just INSTANTLY start whaling on him, like, full blown attack mode to defend our mom. Which obviously didn't help the situation, but she did wake up and everything was fine.

Now our dad says that he's actually really glad they attacked him over what they thought was going on, because it means he raised good boys. And I still think that's true, they're very good boys.

[symphonyofsilence]

Let the poor man rest.

[platoapproved]

louis + cruelty

[sillystringpony]

the one where cheerilee knows

[aroaceleovaldez]

one of my favorite parts about Percy being Obviously Bi™ is he doesn't universally describe one gender as attractive. Like he doesn't just say all girls are cute and guys are just okay or whatever or vice versa. No, he has specific girls he finds pretty and specific guys he finds pretty, and he voices that opinion.

For example - Clarisse? Thalia? Meh. Even Silena, who is canonically very pretty, Percy is relatively neutral on. But Annabeth? Rachel? Calypso? 100%. And based on differences in descriptions like that we can tell when Percy is attracted to somebody versus isn't. He calls everybody else in Beckendorf's cabin ugly and then waxes poetic about how hot Beckendorf is specifically. He'll describe most guys as just "eh" with plain physical descriptors but every time he sees Luke he feels the need to specify that Luke is extremely hot while being very evil and how much he hates Luke's stupid very very pretty face. love that for you Percy. great work.

[lesbianaloe]

metal pipe sound effect

[hinamie]

inflict

[lopsaii]

[lady-of-the-tambre]

Daniel Molloy, 70 year old baby vampire: you know what would piss off both Louis and Armand and be very funny simultaneously?

Lestat de Lioncourt, queen of drama and biggest bitch in any room he walks into: what?

Daniel: if you and I fucked.

Lestat:

Lestat: tell me more.

[spoopdeedoop]

WYD WHEN MY GANG PULL UP !!!

[kipkiphoorayy]

‼️ hazbin s1 finale spoilers ‼️

some text posts for the finale, what a ride!

[kaahmbem]

legend has it that the young witch circe and the once beautiful nymph scylla shared a complicated past...

[superectojazzmage]

Deadpool and Wolverine is the single best portrayal of Wolverine in live action so far because it's the only one that really understands how best to depict him; a grouchy trainwreck of an extremely divorced dad who loves his dysfunctional shitshow of a family but also can't fucking stand them and is THIS close to driving the station wagon off a cliff during the drive to Sunday church with everyone inside in a fit of alcohol-fueled manic depression.