So, I went and got my Bitch Planet tattoo today, and someone in the shop asked, “That’s pretty… Visible. Aren’t you afraid of being that obvious?” And I replied, “I’m pulling aggro.”
But the more I think about it, the more this metaphor fucking works. I’m a white middle class woman with low expenses, no criminal record, and I live in liberal-ass New England (or at least, I thought I did before the Trump/Pence signs cropped up like fucking forsythias but that’s a whole other post.) I’m safe. Even if I get in a knock-down-drag-out, I’m not going to be seen as an agitator, or a troublemaker, or the “problem.” I have money for bail. I am privileged.
While I have physical disabilities, they actually don’t get in the way of me feeling like I could get in a scrap. If anything, the opposite. I have this whole other post (yeah I think of more all the time like this) about the genetic evolution of Ehler’s-Danlos Syndrome but suffice to say, you can’t hold on to me and you can’t break me easily. I have martial arts training, but I look harmless, so even if I did get in a scrap, the cop is going to go, “You got in a brawl with a 35-year-old fat woman… Yeah… whatever.”
I have mental health limitations, but they actually don’t get worse from being exposed to this shit – I’d feel way worse and more anxious if I didn’t step in. I’m the kind of person who would just second guess and eat themselves alive in thinking of how they should have jumped in to help someone.
I’m a tank. I’m tough, I’m bendy, and bigots aren’t going to shock me or hurt me.
Not everyone is a tank. This is super fucking important. Some people are healers. They deal with the fallout when someone like me comes home shaking and breathing in a paper bag because holy shit I just took a picture of a guy in a CVS who tried to grab my tit. Some people are DPS – they leap in and fucking maul people with cited facts on Facebook arguments and are physically imposing and probably could punch a bitch out.
It’s okay to be what you are. And it’s also okay to take care of yourself. If you’re a tank, you gotta heal up. You need downtime, or you get hypervigilant and debuffed and you’re too fucked up to help anyone. If you’re a healer, you need to get your resources back so you can do what you love without taxing yourself unduly. It’s like that.
So I’m a tank. And I’ll wear my Non-Compliant Genderqueer tattoo with pride. I wear my “Respect Existence or Expect Resistance” tattoo the same way. I wear them so that the girl with the neutral gender haircut who just wants to fucking ride the bus isn’t as inviting a target as I am. I pull aggro. I don’t want a fight, I won’t start a fight, but you better fucking believe I’ll step in the way.
Taunt, pull, peel, sustain, rest, drop your stacks, and fight on.
I love this goddamn metaphor.
Assess your skills, your strengths, and your weaknesses. Do the work that needs to be done, within that framework.
Not everyone is on the same battalion, or even the same battlefield, but it’s all the same war.
Tanking Bigots
Published
sparksoffandommagic 