#time to be 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.

[unpeeled-human]

i fucking hate my brain it wants to do so many things and it cant even focus on one of them. like its like "start an rpgmaker game!" "no, you should learn godot!" "what about your 3d models on blender??" "but you have that comic to work on!!" "you should also just draw more things in general" and im like SHUT UUUUPPP it feels like this

[sopuu]

possessive x obsessive

[ashcremated]

another old repost time! beloved silly headcanon that zuko got a tattoo during his banishment days (plus a side of zukki)

[crumb-crumblet-s-crumbington]

guys is it weird for your 20 year old son to build your ex husband out of trash in your house after youve gotten divorced

[greykolla-art]

Imagine spending all your energy being cool and mysterious 24/7.

What an idiot have I mentioned I love him?

Idea came from a cool post @nouverx made about Alastor’s possible sleeping habits. 💕

[realrosielol]

La clan sibling interaction

[rovermcfly]

proud to say that I have never once in my life figured out the whodunit in any crime story I've read or watched. I just let the facts and clues wash over me, absorbing absolutely none of it. I am the audience they think of when they throw in red herrings, in case you've ever wondered "who would fall for this obvious false lead". it's me. I am the idiot viewer/reader. not once has an obviously framed clue revealed anything to me. my head is completely empty when I consume these stories.

[kimquatz]

here's a funny conversation topic i had a with a friend: if you're over the age of 25, when's the last time you really *ran* in a panic (like you were late, chasing after something, etc. things like a marathon don't count!) and what was it for?

[quixoticprince]

I don't think the fact that The Administrator is older than the invention of stairs in TF2 is talked about enough

Curse you Shakespearicles

[mumbito]

me clicking on a video from the silliest man in the world: teehee what wacky hijinks await me

world renown block clown mumbo Fucking jumbo: you ever think about how old technology seems to live forever in the suspended state of whatever the newest advancements were at the time. how most technology immediately and fundamentally tells you when it was important and when it was left in the dust. it’s suspended in its era forever, and in that it is perfect.

stagnation is a form of death but nostalgia is cruel immortality. still i find myself locked in pursuit of it until i finally stumble across the undeath of the mechanical. as my hard earned improvement truly begins to pay dividends, surrounded by my opus of change, i will freeze myself in eternal utopia. the only way to never die is to preemptively kill whoever you might become. i will not have a grave, i will not be ashes and dust. i will be a perfect, extant machine.

me: Ok. i dont think this will plague me at all actually. like video.

[moupies]

“What are those scars?”

“Surgery to make me more aerodynamic”

[albinogel]

[stemmmm]

gotta hand it to him, he is a cutie in that prison uniform

[crumb-crumblet-s-crumbington]

megoplita and their weird son little brother thing

[saintforan]

gorgeous looking fem!shadow and her stupid ass adam sandler looking gf