I'm Having An Identity Crisis So I Need To Know, To You, Do I Give Off Tall Person Vibes Or Short Person

I'm having an identity crisis so I need to know, to you, do I give off tall person vibes or short person vibes?

And explain

This user supports ace & aro inclusion.

i'm seeing a lot of my mutuals are deficient in forehead kisses 😞

therefore, rb this to give all your mutuals a forehead kiss :)

Barnes and Nobles is gonna start serving food and alcohol.

Everybody’s cracking jokes about how it’s a desperate attempt to stay relevant in the age of Amazon.

But you know what? Props to them. This is exactly what Blockbuster didn’t do. At no point was Blockbuster like “Hey, movie rentals aren’t the lucrative enterprise they once were. Perhaps it’s time we become known for our cheesy garlic bread.”

I’m aroace but since that has next to no representation I didn’t realize that until about 2 years ago. But there are so many things that should have tipped me off

- my drama teacher asked me if I would be comfortable playing a character with a romance heavy role

- A friend after hearing I played a flirtatious character said they couldn’t see me in that role

- I TALKED MYSELF out of crushes I had in the past. Just “oh, a crush isn’t like what the media makes it out to be. Crushes are just me wanting to get to know that person better as a friend”

- Completely uninterested by talks about crushes leading to me feeling isolated from my friends

- Never imagining myself in a relationship. If you asked me what I wanted to do with my “crush” at the time, I wouldn’t be able to answer

- Not understanding or having celebrity crushes (I still don’t)

- Liking a character from a book series a LOT and realizing that any other person in my position would like this character more and differently than I did

gay shit ive done that i thought was 100% straight before i realized: a biography

tried to explain to my straight friends that girls are just objectively more attractive than guys. like objectively.

and being convinced that they were lying to me when they disagreed and said they were attracted to men

didn’t understand why breakups were such a big deal. “if he doesn’t give you enough attention just leave him.” “well at least now you have more time for yourself!” “well you still have me :)”

avoided watching lingerie or swimsuit commercials and had my eyes glued to the floor in locker rooms because obviously i’m not gay. like look at how not gay i am

“yeah sometimes i want people to look at me and wonder wtf i am”

got happy chemicals when people thought i was with my female friend

thought that bi girls and lesbians were the coolest fuckin people ever

female characters who didn’t want a relationship with a man and had their own independent storylines were my favorites

stopped watching shows if the characters randomly got paired up in het relationships

got super excited “for no reason” whenever i read a book with gay rep

“i want to look goth and lethal and have a sword but i also want to be a fairy and look like the embodiment of a claire’s store”

“i wish i was a boy because girls are so pretty and i don’t want to have to be with a boy”

never wanted to get married or have kids

felt super uncomfortable whenever a man would show any interest in me

“obviously ⏳ is more attractive than🚪”

but all sizes and shapes of girls are cute

sweaters, flannels, boots and beanies are not seasonal, they are year-long clothing items for all weather. even if it’s 108 degrees and humid

handpicked boys to have a crush on

“these are the men i’m attracted to” (insert queer-coded fictional character with feminine characteristics)

“who do you have a crush on?” “no one” “aw are you embarrassed to tell us?” 😐

any man who has ever been nice to me i must have a crush on now. that’s the rules.

i think i like him but i have to convince myself really hard that i do and the second he reciprocates fondness i no longer like him. i’m probably just picky

“he’s sweet, he’s funny, his face is symmetrical, and he’s smart but not in a show-off way… why don’t i like him?”

“look at all these other girls being boy-crazy. SOO GLAD i’m not like that :P”

other gays/queer people feel free to add on (although this is primarily for sapphics (and aspecs))

Platonic Love In Fiction

Often in books, platonic love is pushed aside and made secondary to romantic love (as a result of an extremely allonormative world). Platonic love should not be pushed aside; no matter whether your character is alloromantic or aromantic, platonic love is still extremely important. As writers, we should be careful not to push platonic love to the backburner. 

First off, let’s get this straight. Platonic love is not less than romantic love. To me, platonic love is actually more important, but that’s not the point of this essay. Maybe that’s the point of this essay, but we’re going to ignore that right now.  

This is especially a trend in YA fiction, but not exclusive to YA. Platonic love is pushed aside for romantic love. We all know the trend. A character has friends (maybe) until the love interest is introduced and then that’s all that matters. What about the friends? They’re important too. But after the introduction of the love interest they fade into the background until we wonder hey, what happened to those guys? 

In our books, we need to make it clear that platonic love is important. Don’t fall prey to the disappearing friend act. If you’re going to write a romance, make it clear that your character’s friendships are just as important, even if it’s a different sort of important. It’s okay for a character to prioritize one sort of relationship—someone might prioritize their family over their friends, their friends over their family, or their lover over their friends or family—that’s okay, as long as it’s clear that all of these relationships have some level of importance to the character and aren’t completely forgotten because of a romantic relationship. As someone who writes a lot of romance and occasionally writes romance-centric stories, I always make sure to prioritize platonic relationships. 

While we need platonic relationships to be important, we also need platonic relationships that are more important. What I mean is that we need platonic relationships prioritized over romantic relationships, the same way romantic relationships can be prioritized over platonic relationships. For some people, platonic relationships are the more important relationships, whether that person is alloromantic or aromantic or somewhere in between. 

Romantic relationships are not the only type of relationships. Platonic relationships are not less than romantic relationships. We need platonic relationships that are just as important as romantic ones, platonic relationships that are just as strong, just as intense, just as prioritized. We need to see unbreakable friendships in fiction; we need to see best friends who would do anything for each other, who don’t forget each other the moment one gets a romantic partner. We need to see friends whose love for each other is just as strong as romantic love. We need to see queerplatonic partners and relationships that don’t quite fit the bounds of romantic or platonic.

What we need is variation. There is no one type of relationship that is the most important. There is no one type of love that is superior. We need to write about the complexities of love and romantic and friendship and make it clear that one is not better or more important or stronger than the other. We need to break through the idea that romantic love is the only type of love, and we can do that through awareness, being conscious of these biases we sometimes unintentionally hold. Let go of the idea of romantic love being highest on the pyramid—there shouldn’t be a hierarchy at all! All love is equal, and we need to make that clear in our writing. No more treating romantic love as better or more important. All love is equal.