Just talking with the new seasonal helpers, about anything, while we worked on some monotone task. Ended up talking tattoos and meanings of our inks, as two of us had tattoos and the third was contemplating to get one himself. I have my Arrow Ace card tattoo on my wrist I showed, explaining it being a visual pun for my orientation as Aromantic Asexual.
For the first time in my life, when mentioning my orientation to ANYONE not already member of the Ace community… they both as one reacted with the “ooh!” of recognition. Immediately knowing what I was talking about. No questions, no confusion. Understanding and accepting right away.
It was amazing.
And why was this? When I told them how this was the first time I was met with this kind of immediately understanding, they admitted it was all thanks to them watching BoJack Horseman and its depiction of Todd’s discovery and development as an asexual person.
There are SO many reasons why awareness and representation matters. This is just one tiny bit of it.
I don’t mind explaining asexuality to people with questions. But it comes with a risk of people trying to enforce their own interpretations on the subject and ignore it’s part of your identity and not just some weird new thing open for interpretation. I’ve had talks go south by strangers refusing to acknowledge my personal experiences and even try pressure me to have sex with “anyone” for the sake of having sex since it’s supposedly will “cure” me. People forcing their own personal experience onto me, because they can’t relate to mine. Not all the time do I experience this. But enough times.
This though… immediate understanding and acceptance. The shrug of being nothing out of the ordinary, as a normal thing not to be debated and discussed. It’s amazing. We are not just some crazy people on the Internet wanting to be special snowflakes. We fight to be normalized. So many minorities just wish to be normalized. To stop the debates and just be accepted.
Which the media holds the power of. Characters, representation, shared information. Learning this is a thing, just like any other thing, remove the taboo and the feel of something being too weird or too hard to relate to, to be accepted.
I don’t even watch Bojack Horseman myself. Not my kind of show. But I can definitely appreciate what it does for representation, when meeting people who do watch it. This acceptance right off the bat, when talking face to face to someone…
Amazing.
Why more diversity in shows, movies, books, anything really, where it can fit in and work… is so needed for everyone out there feeling they need the representation to help being accepted in a world that far too often bases its experience on cookie cutter models of the same old same.
The story was short, but I ended up rambling a bit there, heh. Thanks for reading.
A group of rough looking boys walked past me today and all I heard of their conversation was “he’s got that anxiety disorder bro so I went with him so he’d be more comfortable” and it made me realise the world isn’t all that bad
The pet store I worked at had a pen with rabbits near the front door. On every side of the pen were huge signs saying “You can pet me, but don’t pick me up!” One day two absolutely huge guys came in and one immediately reaches into the pen to grab a rabbit. Before i could say anything his friend grabbed his arm and asked him “did you see the sign?” He said “yeah! it says that you can pick them up but don’t pet them!” Then he went quiet for a moment and softly said “I didn’t read it right did I?” And his friend just puts his arm on his shoulder and said “its ok, i know you’ve got that thing where words get mixed up. Let just pet these cute lil shits” And I still haven’t gotten over that interaction.
I was walking my dog through Boston bc he likes the likes car rides. He’s a little thing tbh we call him short and long. So this huge scary man with a full beard approaches me like “hey can my buddy and I pet your dog? He gets nervous around dogs but your’s is so small I think it’s a good place to start.” Ofc I was like “yes he’s very friendly!” So this guy brings his equally big friend over and they sit on the floor while this man looks terrified of my tiny dog so big man number one asks “can I pick him up?” And i say yes so he picks him up and puts him on man number two’s lap and man number two is abt to freak out and his friend straight up just goes “hey man, it’s okay just relax I’d never let anything hurt you. He’s a good boy.” I’ll never forget it ever bc I know that man looked at me (5’3 , glasses, probably wearing a sweater vest) and my dog (kinda goofy looking little thing) and was like ‘ah yes the two least intimidating living things I’ve seen in Boston all day he’ll feel relaxed around them’ and went out of his way to help his friend. It makes me so happy
My husband had this Dungeons and Dragons group ages ago, and one of the guys was TERRIFIED of cats. The moment he sees one he freezes up and can barely breathe. Said guy is almost seven feet tall and solid wall of muscle. Whenever he came over I’d put the cats in the bedroom and chill out with a book because my cats don’t like being shut away without one of us.
One of my cats was pawing at the door and meowing loudly, an indication she REALLY needs to use the litter box. I let her out and decide, hey, I’m hungry, and decide to the kitchen. I forgot to shut the bedroom door.
Next thing I hear is the group going completely silent. My husband very calmly asks me to come over and help him gather our two cats up. I go over to where the group is and my black cat, Cacoa, is rubbing up against the guy’s leg, purring, and doing her “let me on your lap” meow. The other cat, Jasper, is sitting at the window, chilling out. I go over and pick up Cacoa and tell the big dude she’s harmless, loves laps, and would be thrilled if he pet her. Very slowly he touches my cat’s face, and she leans right into his hand. He then pets her back and sighs because she’s really soft and purring like mad. After a few minutes he asks how to pick her up and if it’s okay if she sits on his lap.
He spent the next six hours spoiling my cat. The next week he showed up with cat treats and toys because he fell in love with the cats. He told me he was doing some research on house cats, and even talked to a vet about them. A couple months later he adopted two cats and was as thrilled and excited as a new parent.
Oh no a new one!!!
Blessed post.
I used to work at this stable for icelandic horses and every now and then this man would turn up by the field to just watch the horses. One time I walked by him as I was going to get the horses inside, and he went ”I always wanted to learn how to ride but I’m afraid of horses because they’re so huge. If I could ride ponies like this, maybe I’d dare but now I’m too big and heavy for them.” You should have seen his face when I told them that actually they’re not ponies, just small horses and they could totally carry him. His face just lit up. Next thing I’m helping him to get on back. Today he knows how to ride.
A few years ago my sister and I were in Daytona Beach, and we saw this huge, burly biker. Looked like the stereotypical biker: big black beard, the goggles, leather, and a bandana. He also had a baby carrier, and in that baby carrier was a tiny little orange Pomeranian. We complimented his dog and he said, in one of the deepest voices I’ve ever heard, “thanks, his name’s Little Bear!” And he told us about how he’d take Little Bear out on his motorcycle everyday and how much the dog loved it.
*this is especially important: these days on Tumblr there’s a wonderful atmosphere of being able to talk openly about your mental illness or your struggle. And that’s great! But there’s a difference between sharing in order to help yourself and other people and sharing just because you have no other coping mechanisms. As much as you’re able, try to work on developing a different outlet. People aren’t qualified to be your therapist because they’re nice to you a couple of times. Please remember that they have lives too, and their job is not to make you feel better or pity you, no matter how difficult your life is.
And last but not least:
But…
I really don’t have a way to better this.
Your interests are your own. I can’t advise anyone to change their interests to fit in with a certain group of people – that’s stupid, and actually quite damaging to your sense of self.
Instead, I would recommend that, maybe if you feel like your topics of conversation are falling flat with this group of people, you move on to other, greener pastures. There are bound to be places where your ideas mesh better with an audience.
And of course – try to be considerate about what you say and how you say it.
Sometimes, what might seem like a harmless comment to you might be a very discomforting thought to another person. I recently had a conversation on a forum with a guy who was telling me that his headcanon was that Pearl (from SU) would soon get a male love interest who loved mechanics and weapons next, and that would be her best arc, because she would finally get a ‘healthy’ love interest.
His intentions were good, but he was entirely unaware of how cringey this kind of thing was to a bunch of (probably queer) people, who have spent their entire lives being told that the only ‘good’ character development for them would be to get a ‘male love interest’. No one wanted to be the jerk to say “fuck off, we don’t want that to happen” but everyone was answering him in a flat way, trying to discourage the discussion further. Instead of picking up on the hint, he bulldozed on, thinking he was having a ‘lively conversation’ which was, in fact, in its late stages of death.
I know I’ll probably get a few messages to this saying: What about people on the Autistic Spectrum? Sometimes, people can’t pick up social cues or ‘hints’. And if that’s the case, it’s incredibly difficult to understand why you’re not having any luck communicating despite your best efforts.
I feel that on a person level, please believe me. I made this infograph for THAT VERY REASON. Because I WAS that awkward kid who didn’t pick up on hints well. In fact, I still have trouble talking to people. If any of you have had the misfortune of being my conversational partner, you’ll know that I tend to be overly blunt and come off as very unfriendly. It’s something that I, myself, am working on currently in order to grow into a better person. It’s a struggle in progress, but I am aiming towards the progress side, and I just wanted to help out others while I was at it.
Posting this here because someone might just find this relatable. A comic I drew as therapy, to help me get over some big creative issues I’ve been dealing with recently. Hope it can help some of you as well.
Thank you so much for posting this to Tumblr! I hope you all find this as inspiring as I did.
maskedmadnessq 