Nick has had a waxy buildup in his ear for a while, and now his ear has become hot and red, so it’s time to visit the Vet.
Fortunate Friday
“Others are drawn to your magnetic personality,
—Anonymous Fortune
You know, if I had to describe my experience as an aromantic in one word, I think I’d go with “alienating”. Let me explain:
Imagine you’re aro and watching TV. There some kind of SciFi show on and they are debating the personhood of an AI.
The AI shows curiosity and a thirst for knowledge. They have desires. They have strengths and weaknesses. None of this convinces the doubters.
The AI makes friends. They take up hobbies. They talk about their hopes and dreams for the future. Surely this is enough to relate to them as a person? It’s not.
The AI is shown to fall in love. This is framed as the ultimate proof, the one thing that must humanize them even to the staunchest denier of their personhood or else that person is irredeemable.
You change the channel.
There’s a children’s cartoon on. “What is this?!” the villain cries, pointing at a couple. Their inability to understand the romantic love between those two is framed as stemming from the fact that somebody so deeply evil simply cannot understand something as pure and good as romantic love.
You change the channel.
There’s a sitcom on. Two characters are discussing a third character. “He’s really not that weird,” says one character. “He hasn’t been in a relationship for [x] years!” the other refutes. Cue the laugh track. The implication is clear: If he’s not in a relationship, it must be because he’s too weird.
You change the channel.
There’s a Christmas movie on. The main character is a successful businesswoman. She’s shown talking to her friends and family regularly. “You need a man,” her mother says as they bake together. The daughter denies this. The rest of the movie is all about proving the mother right, as suddenly her career, her friends and her family are framed as not being enough for her to lead a fulfilling life.
You change the channel.
It’s some show aimed at young teens and tweens. “Ew,” one character comments as the idea of them having a significant other one day is brought up. This is treated as a sign of their immaturity.
You turn off the TV.
Your experiences aren’t enough to humanize a non-human character. You’re the villain. You’re a weirdo. Your life is incomplete. You’re immature.
You’re tired.
There’s a reason it was an aro who coined the term voidpunk.
I, for one, like Roman numerals.
Kurt Vonnegut wrote: “When I was 15, I spent a month working on an archeological dig. I was talking to one of the archeologists one day during our lunch break and he asked those kinds of “getting to know you” questions you ask young people: Do you play sports? What’s your favorite subject? And I told him, no I don’t play any sports. I do theater, I’m in choir, I play the violin and piano, I used to take art classes.
And he went WOW. That’s amazing! And I said, “Oh no, but I’m not any good at ANY of them.”
And he said something then that I will never forget and which absolutely blew my mind because no one had ever said anything like it to me before: “I don’t think being good at things is the point of doing them. I think you’ve got all these wonderful experiences with different skills, and that all teaches you things and makes you an interesting person, no matter how well you do them.”
And that honestly changed my life. Because I went from a failure, someone who hadn’t been talented enough at anything to excel, to someone who did things because I enjoyed them. I had been raised in such an achievement-oriented environment, so inundated with the myth of Talent, that I thought it was only worth doing things if you could “Win” at them.”
I was so honored to join the Pixar Dream Destinations show opening today at Gallery Nucleus! Here’s my piece for the witch’s cottage from Brave – it’s available for sale here.
Exciting news, everyone! You asked and Disney listened: this piece is now available as a limited edition of 50 prints @gallerynucleus (available for purchase here)! Thank you so much for your support, it means the world! 💛
Ask them what they think the single most important factor was in the fall of the Round Table.
I could go on about this for ages and I’d rather just link you to my book… but that would be self-serving. Instead, I’d just casually mention that the fall of the Round Table is the chivalric ideal itself.
After the wars are won, the Table Knights fall into what T.H. White refers to as ‘games mania.’ They have nothing to fight for because the wars are over and the knights inevitably begin to fight each other. The battle against Mordred could have been against anyone. It doesn’t really matter whether it’s Arthur’s inbred son, jealousy amongst the knights, the Lancelot/Guinevere affair–which is of later tradition–or any of that; eventually, someone would prevent the eternal peace of Arthur’s kingdom because we, as humans, are flawed. The chivalric ideal is a concept that cannot be maintained without an outlet for the knights’ inherent violence and the imperfection of human nature.