I just rewatched episode 205 and there’s something I really appreciate about the way the show handles homophobia that’s a little complicated to explain, but here goes.

They show homophobia and the affects of homophobia. The entire plot of the show hinges on an experience of homophobia in the main character’s back story.

But, and this is what I noticed this time, it doesn’t make the audience experience it directly. We see it happen. We see James McGraw exiled from England for loving a man, but no one ever says it, outright, in those words. The show dances around it just enough for it to be clearly and unequivocally canon, but without the audience having to experience that trauma directly.

Here’s why I like this: It allows me, as a gay person, to see myself and my trauma represented on screen WITHOUT having to live it. I can see that it’s canon, see that important representation, connect to it, relate to it, but I DON’T have to see people like me being called disgusting in no uncertain terms on screen.

It’s a representation of gay trauma that doesn’t retraumatize gay people.

And it is IMMEDIATELY followed up with the extremely clear message, “They tried to tell you that you should be ashamed for who you are, but you should not be ashamed.”

It’s a story about gay trauma that’s so extraordinarily kind towards any gay people in the audience, and that means so much to me.

Know no shame.

Honestly, I was having such a shit day, just crying and feeling capital D Depressed™ about fucking everything, and then I checked the mail and -

Sometimes I write to celebrities, when their movies or tv shows hit me hard. Rogue One hit me hard. I wrote to the actors to thank them for portraying real heroes, heroes who are terrified and young and who die not knowing if they’ve even succeeded, if it was worth it. I just think, like, if I were an actor, it’d matter to me that people saw me and the story I told and it mattered to them, you know?

Bodhi is the character I relate to most in Rogue One. They’re all beautifully flawed in their own ways, beautifully realised characters, but Bodhi I think feels the fear of what he’s doing more than the rest (I feel like the rest of the cast have lived every day of their lives half expecting to wake up and it be the day they’re going to die, you know? And I think eventually you can become numb to that fear) and does it anyway, and as cliche as I know that is, it means a lot.

ANYWAY.

I was having a really bad day. And then I opened the mail and realised that for one small moment I had existed to someone who I admire a lot.

I exist, I exist, I exist.

It’s dumb, but sometimes it’s all I have. Breathe in, breathe out. And keep doing it, even if your throat is tight. Some days are like that. But in a thousand fictional universes, there are characters who are feeling the same burn in their lungs, and in the real world, there are people who make them real, if only for two hours.

So yeah.

I know Riz Ahmed will never see this, but thank you. I could do with a little luck right now.

for twenty-year-olds who have never been loved

All of a sudden two decades have passed and you still have not kissed anyone with tongue, or kissed anyone at all for that matter, or had a 3 AM conversation with someone who would rather look into your eyes for ten minutes straight than talk. You have never worn a lover’s sweater or “forgotten” it at home in your bedroom just so you would have an excuse to see them again. You have never even stood face-to-face with someone who makes your hands shake so hard it feels like they’re both having a separate anxiety attack.

This causes you much guilt and self-blame and sadness but above all, an overwhelming curiosity. Are you really that ugly, that unwanted, that uninteresting, that boring, that no one, absolutely no one, has ever looked at you like the only thing on earth?

The answer is no. The better answer is that someone out there, somewhere in the world, is “wondering what it’s like to meet someone like you,” and they have two decades worth of love stored in their veins like a shoot-‘em-up drug, and they’re just about ready to inject it into someone else’s bloodstream. All you have to do is roll up your sleeves and wait for it to happen.

At times you felt so lonely you could stand at the edge of a cliff with nothing beneath you but air and grass and a long, long way down, and you’d still feel emptier than that canyon itself. Maybe you even danced with yourself alone in your room a few times, arms outstretched around a ghost, pretending someone else’s hands were on your waist, someone else’s eyes boring into yours.

Or maybe you fell temporarily in love with strangers on public transportation, fell in love with anybody who so much as accidentally brushed your hand on the way past. For you, falling in love with dozens of people a day was a coping mechanism for not having anyone to love you in return. But people are not eggs and falling in love with a dozen of them does not mean your shell will remain uncracked. One day you’re going to hit the point where you’re so desperate for human contact that you’re going to snap in half and all your love will bleed out like egg yolk.

But someone out there is eating a bowl of Ramen noodles right now, or putting on slippers, or settling into bed. They are doing all the normal things that you’ve done in your own life. They are just like you. They have cellulite and extra fat in all the wrong places and goals and fears and doubts and bad handwriting.

The truth is that they are just like you, and being just like you, they’re looking for a lover too. They’re what you might call a soulmate.

They think they’re all alone in feeling the way they do, but you’re really both two halves of a whole.

And one day you’ll meet them, bump into them on the street, and your two halves will be put together, and you’ll make one.

#for those romantically inclined #but also soulmates are platonic as well

Absolutely amazing polymer clay journals by © Anna Kolesnikova (Mandarin Duck). Take a look at her portfolio, it’s really something.

You can look around in her Etsy shop here.

Also she has a very cool YouTube channel filled with tutorials and all kinds of crafty videos.

Become a fan of her on Facebook here.