Its Unreal How All Of My Favorite Characters Have Exactly The Same Traits And Hobbies And Diagnoses As

when spiders put their little pedipalps together

love how when i get a new interest, i’m like “oh god it’s happening again” and i’m stuck like that for about a week until everything explodes and any interest i’ve had prior is completely dwarfed for an unknown amount of time

Happy Ides of March to all those who celebrate. ☺️🔪

I hope I'm not just a mutual to you, but someone you want to bring up in irl conversation so you have to awkwardly and cryptically say "my friend..." and refuse to elaborate on my origins or the origins of our friendships

"I had to learn that the alarm won't go off when the hunter isn't hunting." <<This.

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.

Have you REALLY lost your scissors if you aren't walking around making scissor motions with your fingers in an attempt to lure them back out?

I absolutely think adults, especially parents, ascribe manipulative intent to children when they shouldn't and it's absolutely a problem but it's always kind of funny to me when people go online and proclaim that children are incapable of manipulation. When I was three I asked my mom to get my older sibling their favorite candy bar at the grocery story because I knew she'd get me mine too as a reward for being thoughtful and that was way more likely to succeed than if I just asked for a candy bar for me. And it worked. Children scheme at a developmentally appropriate level the trick is not assuming children scheme at an adult level.

Seems like a fun/insanely frustrating thing to try if I end up stuck in the past :D Can't wait to be swabbing syphilitic coochies--for science!

I can understand how "modern person thrown into the past gets by pretending to be a healer/doctor" is as surprisingly common of a trope as it is. I mean I'm fluent enough at bullshitting to be pretty sure I could pull it off to impersonate a doctor in any time pre-1800s. If I have no idea what something is or how to treat it, I could just get the opinion of the other whatever-passes-as-medical-professionals around, but if their suggestions sound like bullshit I'm not doing it. And I'll beat the shit out of anyone suggesting bloodletting or mercury. With my healing stick. I've tied little bells on it, that jingle comically with every smack.

The awesome curative powers of my healing stick come from two separate sources: Placebo, and me using it to beat anyone trying to give my patients mercury.

*somewhat spoilers for Scavengers Reign ahead*

Almost finished with Scavengers Reign, but I don't think I'm going to finish it. I'm...just not really getting why people were so hype over it. Which is kinda sad--I was cautiously optimistic about the promise of good environmental and creature design, which it *does* deliver. And to be fair to the show (and its fans,) my sticking point is that I'm not a fan of "life-is-hard, people are shitty, that's reality" style fiction/storytelling. I want pure escapism and hope--hope that I don't have to narratively pay for with a buncha grim dark feels first. :/

The soundtrack was also generally too tension-ramping for me to enjoy and they didn't really break any new ground on sound-mixing/Foley for the beasts/enviro. (I'm like... "distorted violin bow on something," "tiger rumble," "bull gator mixed with tiger" the whole time. They did get some nice pap paps for the mush patting, tho. 5/5 mushrooms, I would also pap those fungi.)

I just...want the creatures and biological focus of Nausicaä, & Mushishi, & Scavengers Reign without all the attendant storytelling sadness, like can we do that? Can I finally have that some day? (Without the insipidity of shows like Pokemon?) /lu

Dungeon Meshi comes the closest, I think, but the environmental storytelling there is kinda flaccid comparatively. Not a lot of creatures/plants exist on-screen except for the featured ones of the episode, and there are certainly no exotic biomes.

Times like this I think...maybe I'm just too autistic. Oh well.

This planet & its biota were prob the closest I've gotten to getting what I want to see, I just can't take the sad storytelling vibes long enough to enjoy it.

Absolutely my vibes. Man, I need to get back into making Little Guys ™ (gender neutral) because they really bring such joy to life ☺️

New friends just dropped

🦉🦔🐋🐦‍⬛🐻🐏🦝🦫🐇