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Growing up aromantic is

Thinking romance is something others do. Thinking romance is a set of socially constructed behaviours. Thinking romance is friends who agree to call themselves a couple. Thinking I will marry my best friend when I grow up, because we get along well and what more would there be to it?

Thinking romance is a fictional trope, and hating Disney movies because they’re all about it. Not relating to the other kids at school because they dream of fairytale endings and true love’s kiss. Not understanding when my friends start blushing and asking who I like. Thinking “liking boys” is a trend, the result of too much Disney, not an orientation.

Thinking romance is picking a boy I want to know better and calling it a crush. Exaggerating my feelings so I can fit in. Telling a friend how I can crush or stop crushing on people at will, and laughing when she says that’s not how it works. Wondering why she pines for months over a boy who doesn’t like her back.

Thinking romance is a game and scoring a partner is winning. Getting confused when others care about what comes after. Wondering what secret rules they know that I don’t. Telling myself I must be playing the wrong way, and restarting.

Thinking romance is the fiery devotion, the deep care I have for my best friends. Trying to explain it, and the words catching in my throat. Not wanting to call it romantic love, because somehow that feels wrong. Not knowing what else to call it, because if this isn’t romance, what is?

Thinking nobody really understands romance anyway. Reading and re-reading the description of a crush in my sex education book and coaching myself to feel that way. Assuming everyone has to teach themselves how to love. Being jealous of those to whom it comes so naturally.

Thinking romance is a compromise, words and gestures that must be given to prove I care. Trying to give them and feeling out of my depth. Convincing myself I have intimacy issues. Never questioning why love feels so wrong with my boyfriend, yet so right with my friends.

Thinking romance is a happy ending written for others. Watching all my friends pair off. Staying awake at night, terrified that this means I will never matter to anyone. Asking the darkness why my own kind of love isn’t enough.

Thinking romance is something I will be taught, one day. Writing stories about heartless, empty, broken characters who are fixed by true love. Meeting the right person and still not feeling the right way. Exploring various fears and traumas because one of them has to be causing this, right?

Thinking romance is something I have to feel, or what would I be? Convincing myself I can’t be aromantic because, because, because… Being afraid of a blank slate future with no other half to hold onto. Feeling like everything I thought I’d understood is falling apart.

Thinking romance is something others do. Allowing myself to let go of what was never a part of me. Crying when an aromantic friend tells me they love me like I do. Feeling, finally, like I belong, like I am enough.

Knowing aromanticism can mean happy endings too.

Cool Prehistoric Creatures

since I’ve been obsessed with prehistoric animals for the past few days, I’m gonna share several of the coolest ones I’ve found here we goooo

Inostrancevia aka the Goodest Boy.

my fave at present. a genus belonging to the family Gorgonopsidae, which is a family of extinct therapsids. These were the largest members of Gorgonopsidae, weighing 300 kilograms on average. As you can see, it is Lorge. It lived around 250-265 million years ago.

Here he is committing murder of a Scutosaurus with his badass saber teeth.

Despite the fact that this good boy would eat me, I would give him scritches.

OKAY

Polonosuchus aka HOLY SHIT THATS TERRIFYING WHAT WHO AUTHORIZED THIS

So, as much as I love dinosaurs, I feel like they unnecessarily overshadow some of the Really Unneccesarily Terrifying critters that God took look one look at, said “what have I done” and stuffed away deep deep in the Triassic period.

Such as the rauisuchians.

Nature apparently did a shit ton of experimenting around with crocodylomorphs before coming up with the flat river dwelling bois we know and love. You know how our modern crocodiles have their legs sprawled out to the side so they kind of have to drag themselves along?

Well...

Polonosuchus was basically a CROCODILE. THAT COULD RUN. FAST. AND IT WAS

IT WAS THIS BIG

SIX METERS LONG AND AS TALL AS A HUMAN

IMAGINE SEEING A CROCODILE AND IT GETS UP ON THESE TALL ASS LEGS AND STARTS SPRINTING AFTER YOU LIKE A LEOPARD

I WOULD SHIT

Doedicurus aka Literally a Tank

Have you ever looked at an armadillo and thought “hey what if this thing weighed 1,400 kilograms and had a spiky club on the end of its tail”

Thankfully you don’t have to imagine.

The club alone weighed 40-65 kilograms.

Nothing I could add would make this better

Pelagornis, aka Hey Isnt This A Little Excessive?

I’m very slightly bitter at pterosaurs for overshadowing the Giant Birds from Hell that used to just...Exist.

Pelagornis sandersi was a species of flying bird with a wingspan of 20-24 feet. We think it was some sort of seabird.

Also, because being pants-shittingly hugenormous isn’t enough for this thing:

What if beak...but...Teethy Spikes.

I’m going to let you google images of this one because i want you to see the many terrifying reconstructions.

Dinocrocuta, aka Doctor Extreme Bone Hurting

Dinocrocuta was...basically like a spotted hyena. Just. You know. 300 kilograms and 6 feet tall. The size of an entire tiger. Presumably, its large, bone crushing jaws were for crushing even larger bones.

Dinocrocuta actually has a lot of competition for Bone-Crushingest Beast though:

Mongolonyx, aka What If Hoof—But Wolf

The only reconstruction of this guy I can find is by some person on deviantart (contact and watermark is on the image, obvi)

so...some explanation. Mongolonyx is a mesonychid—a carnivorous ungulate. This is an ungulate. A Hoofed Mammal. That decided to evolve into a predator for some reason. Though it looks dog-like here, it wouldn’t have looked like any living animal at all. Its feet would have looked like paws...but hooves. Like many other hoofed mammals mesonychids were fast but not very flexible, and would have run in a similar fashion to modern ungulates.

Speaking of animals that just Do Not look like anything we have now...

Chalicotherium...Huh?

At some point some members of Perissodactyla thought, “Huh, wouldn’t it be cool if we had...Arms?” And never looked back.

Don’t you wish *you* had arms, modern hoofed mammals? That’s what I thought.

The beef between night owls and early birds is so silly. We complete each other. Evolutionary-speaking, wouldn’t it be useful to have people naturally alert at dawn to watch for saber tooth tigers and people alert at midnight watching for like, wolves?? Keeping us safe with internal clocks set to random.

All times of the day are beautiful.

I have absolutely no idea what those flowers/bushes are called ..

. . .

“friends don’t look at friends that way” yeah maybe you should stop automatically assuming something is romantic without the person themselves outright saying it because you don’t know shit. it’s almost as if it’s normal to smile and feel happy looking at someone you care about and admire.

can’t i look at my friends and my family with a loving gaze because i just really appreciate that they’re in my life and i love being with them and i’m just thinking of all the fun times we’ve had together?? like why do you think you have the right to judge what SOMEONE ELSE feels based on a glance that you know nothing about. you don’t know what they feel. you don’t know shit and stop acting like you do just for the sake of your own comfort.

y’all might think this is some cool angsty love trope but it’s actually quite arophobic. i’ve had friendships ruined because of this. nothing is romantic unless the people involved directly say so. if you want to know if something is romo or not then ASK. some of you don’t understand that someone else’s love life and feelings are not for your own gratification or discussion and it really fucking shows

Stages of an eczema flare-up:

dry

R A W

dry, but also tight

shedding like a fucking snake

still shedding HOW IS THERE STILL MORE SKIN

dry, but kinda soft-ish now yay?

Misconceptions of an INFP

1. They are super emotional.

I personally find this to be vague, but I’ve read and heard this a couple times. Just because we make our decisions based on our feelings does not make us “emotional”, at least in the bad sense of the word. Our “logic” can still be logical. Its from a different perspective. Besides, we can be quite cold and unemotional when we want to be or are extremely stressed.

2. They don’t plan.

We may be a P, but that does not mean we don’t plan. It just means we probably don’t have a plan. But when we do plan its about something we deem important enough.

3. They are shy.

I’m not saying I can speak for all INFP , because we do have different background, but I think the word “reserved” is far better used to describe us. We have to think your worth talking to before we do talk to you, when we decide your fine then there probably wont be a problem.

4. They live in their own fantasy world.

Now I find this one funny because, in a way thats true. However, this does not mean we cannot see reality. We know whats going on. However, we would rather believe in an ideal world. We try to make the fantasy a reality. If we don’t, well then we really may just try to live in a fantasy world and shut ourselves off from everyone.

5. They aren’t motivated.

Now I don’t know about you, but I don’t think I’ve ever met an INFP that wasnt motivated to do something. What they are motivated to do or what they are motivated by may look different than what may seem normal, but INFPs always find their passion. Its a part of their “whats my purpose ?” function and they dont truly rest until they find it.

6. They see the best in everyone.

We do see an ideal world and wish to see the best in people. However, we are not blind. We will not sit by while someone does something that goes against our core values. We have a strong inner sense of what is morally correct. Even if we are a bit off or incorrect in our belief, we will feel the injustice of someone going against them. Most likely, we will slowly remove ourselves from being around that person. However, if its injustice towards our close dear ones we will find a way to confront the person.

7. They cry a lot.

I read this somewhere and was surprised. INFPs rarely let other people see them cry. Most likely you will see an INFP cry from frustration before you see them cry from sadness. They dislike showing others their emotion because of their introverted feeling. They would rather remain calm, especially if another person with them is angry or sad.

8. They are emotionally tortured.

I also read this somewhere. It feels weird reading that , but I guess I can see why it may seem that way. If you ever talk to an INFP about personal things, you will see a pattern of them being in situations where they get their heart broken or hurt or even them going through a dark time of their life. However, INFP s are resilient. They can get knocked down quite a bit, but they most likely will always get back up. And they will have learned so much from these experiences that each time they will be smarter and stronger because of it.

Anyway, these are the few I could think of. Thanks for your support! It makes me want to write even more INFP stuff!!

I was explaining this to a friend recently and I think it's an important distinction to make: not all queerplatonic relationships look the same.

A good way I've found to illustrate what exactly a qpr is, is to say "a qpr is to relationships what nonbinary is to gender". While both of these traditionally function on a binary (male/female, platonic/romantic), by defining our personal outlooks and experiences of the concepts of gender and relationships with new terms, we challenge the boundaries that society has put in place.

And yes, whilst redefining what actually constitutes romantic or platonic relationships, or male and female identities, and what makes them different (and acknowledging where they overlap, or where they can expand past what we traditionally expect) is important to increasing our understanding, so is providing options entirely outside of those two boxes.

And that's what it is - options. It's very easy to trivialise the concept of nonbinary and simply make gender into a trinary, rather than a binary. Male/female/nonbinary, which goes against the very purpose of the nonbinary label. This further erases the spectrum of gender. It's the same with relationships - by giving a strict set of instructions on how a qpr must look and act, you are simply creating a trinary. The point of the concept of qprs is to acknowledge that there are relationships between people that may overlap platonic and romantic, or fall partially within one and partially outside, or ones that are entirely separate from either category.

There are an infinite amount of ways a relationship can manifest, and if the people in the relationship feel that queerplatonic best describes their partnership without romance, or their affection without commitment, or their feelings towards each other that aren't quite what romantic or platonic is to them, or any other reason that rebels against amatonormativity, then they can choose to use that term. Queerplatonic covers the widest range of relationships that come in all shapes and sizes.

I think it's so important when discussing topics like relationships and gender to consciously make the effort to keep queering our ideas of the concepts - to remember that a spectrum is a spectrum. Labels can be useful for finding community, identifying your experiences and validating your struggles, but as soon as you try to start hyper-defining them, you lose the radical nature of queering our understanding of ourselves and our relationships. We name these concepts in order to give a voice to our subversion of society's arbitrary rules and expectations, not to police each other into conforming to a particular understanding of how a person (with a certain label) "should" act or be.

INFP's flaws

INFP's mother: Why can't you remember one single thing we ask you to do? Like watering the plants, rearrange your room? Is it that hard?

INFP: *YES MUM, IT'S HARD BECAUSE I'M ALWAYS THINKING AND BEATING MYSELF UP FOR MY 57348 FLAWS AND TRYING TO FIX THEM BUT AT THE SAME TIME, ALL WHILE EXHAUSTING MYSELF TO ACCOMPLISH MY GOALS AND AT THE SAME TIME HAVE A FUCKING LIFE DESPITE MY LIFE ACTUALLY HAVING TONS OF EVENTS, MY MIND BEING JUST FUCKING ALLERGIC TO PLANS AND SCHEDULES JUST STRESSING ME THE FUCK OUT BY THE SOLE THOUGHT OF THEM, AND PEOPLE JUST DON'T REALISE HOW HARD AND DRAINING IT IS TO HAVE A BRAIN WHERE EVERY BIT OF TIREDNESS, LOW SELF-ESTEEM AND ANXIETY FLY UNSTOPPINGLY BETWEEN A WEB OF DREAMS, PROJECTS AND OVERWHELMING RESPONSIBILITIES TO RESPECT. IT'S SO FUCKING HARD TO THINK ABOUT WATERING THE PLANTS WHEN THERE'S SUCH A HURRICANE WITH A MILLION TABS OPEN RAGING IN YOUR MIND FUCKING ALL DAY.*

INFP: Okay, I made a mistake.