Celandine

These are so cute! The way the stripes are blended on the cakes looks great! I’m hungry for cake now…

Oh! I have read “The Art of Being Normal” and can confirm that the trans girl character is misgendered by the other main character throughout the book until literally the very end. Back when I read it the deadnaming stood out less because the character only mentions her new name about halfway through as “I’ve been thinking about going by this” instead of “this is my name now”, but the misgendering was really jarring and honestly hard to read— iirc the other main character, after she comes out to him, continues to misgender her through his perspective (although I don’t think he ever does so to her face?) right up until the final chapter, once she has come out to everyone else. I read it a few years ago now and I was a bit less informed on trans issues back then, so my memory of the book might be a bit faulty or lacking. But yeah, this is one to stay away from. It’s not wildly offensive, but it is uncomfortable (and also pretty slow and uninteresting plot-wise. Would not recommend).

Ooh, this reminds me that the first spongebob episode I ever saw was Planet of the Jellyfish (the entire town gets kidnapped by some monster jellyfish and replaced with creepy doppelgangers). It freaked me out so much!! Spongebob wasn’t on my usual channels so I had absolutely no idea what the show even was about, but I was so freaked out that I never watched any other episodes after that. Grizzly tales for gruesome kids was another creepy show that kind of freaked me out, but I remember really liking it for some reason. I’m not sure why I was more scared of spongebob of all things lol

WOOOOO!! I’ve been meaning to see it when I get the chance because I absolutely loved the first one, but I’ve been busy with GCSEs and revision D: I’m so hyped though.

This might not be what you’re looking for, but there is actually a label for not connecting to or fitting “conventional” sexuality labels: pomosexual. I don’t know whether this will be helpful to you but it seemed to cover some of the ideas that you mentioned. https://www.lgbtqia.wiki/wiki/Pomosexual Regardless, remember that you don’t need to stress about labelling yourself, and you don’t need to label yourself at all if you don’t want to. Just being yourself is enough :)

This isn’t a proper argument (as it’s extremely silly so nobody was taking actual offence) but the first thing that comes to mind is people who made tea by microwaving water (!!?!?) bickering with people who made tea by boiling water in a pot. I was very surprised to learn that electric kettles aren’t that common in the USA!

I love wearing paisley patterns! In general I’m not much of a fashion person but I adore everything paisley I’ve got in my wardrobe, so I’ve been meaning to have a look for more when I get the chance.

Happy Pride month!!

I’ve told most of my friends, all of whom I knew were generally accepting. Because I have a few other queer friends it wasn’t really seen as that much of a big deal. Had to do a quick explanation on the difference between aro and ace for a couple of people but it wasn’t because of anyone making assumptions that aro=ace: someone asked me what the difference was specifically. Since then I’ve mentioned it casually a few times and never had any judgement or problems with anyone, so all in all, it went pretty well! Tbh I haven’t really felt much pressure around dating/romance because none of my friends are in currently in relationships (afaik) and I’m in an all-girls school, so there isn’t as much dating happening between students. Possibly this made it easier for me to feel comfortable coming out. I’m still not out to my family and I probably won’t be for a while, because I don’t trust them to take me seriously yet (although the only reason I’m not out to my sister is because it hasn’t come up in conversation yet - she is very accepting 😁).

There’s a bit of a community around mystery and/or time travel visual novels that I’m kind of a part of, where often the same recommendations will get thrown around. If you also like these kinds of games but can’t stand terrible romance, steer clear of Raging Loop. Its romance just isn’t well written at all — it treats its main three story “routes” as kind of a separate romance route for three different characters, and the romance drama is really awful and often sidetracks the story and weakens the characters involved. You also can’t avoid ANY of these routes, as the story is quite linear for a game in this genre and you have to complete each one in order. (vaguely spoilery past here)

Raqio and Setsu from Gnosia Mama from AI: the somnium files

Oh, aroace Power is great! I’m also a strong believer in aro(allo) Denji — that guy is so confused over what romance is lol I’ve also got a few of my own! Kaname Date from Ai: the somnium files has incredible aroallo vibes, and I love him for it. Also Aitsf: Mizuki Date (aro straight), and Iris Sagan (aro ace) Phi from Zero Escape, who I also headcanon as somewhere on the ace spectrum. Raqio, Comet, and Jonas from Gnosia. And a bonus demiromantic Setsu, who is also canon ace and nonbinary!! Although I think he’s got a canon romance planned, I really like the idea of aromantic Juniper Sloan from Camp Here & There.

If you want to. It’s possible that you haven’t stumbled across a pronoun set that you feel fits you properly yet. Or conversely, it might be that you haven’t used a pronoun set that you don’t dislike for long enough to feel like it actually represents you. If that’s the case, it could be worth picking one or two that you kind of like and seeing how you get on with them. I don’t know what pronouns you’ve used in the past or for how long you’ve used them, so this one’s a bit of a stab in the dark though. It sounds like what pronouns you’re comfortable using can vary — of course, loads of people change which pronouns they use periodically, so don’t be afraid to mix and match different pronouns whenever you feel like it. If you’re completely sick of using pronouns at all though, I know that some people just go by their names (ie instead of he/him/his/himself or another pronoun set like that, using [Name]/[Name]/[Name]’s/[Name]’s self). That could be worth a try? Hopefully this is at least somewhat helpful, as this question doesn’t really have a clear-cut answer — it’s whatever you end up feeling is best for you.

Hope you’re doing ok. It’s horrible to have people attack your identity like that, especially people close to you. To me, this sounds like he might be deliberately trying to make you angry to get a rise out of you or wind you up (especially that comment about being uninteresting?? What does that even mean? Why would it even matter?). If you think his mind’s made up and he’s just saying stuff to upset you, it might be best to try and redirect the conversation or ignore him, as much as it sucks to hear that kind of stuff. But if you do want to engage or to try to convince him otherwise, then maybe you could have a look for studies or stories of people’s personal experiences with aphobia? Sometimes approaching your point from a more distanced, logical perspective can help convince these sorts of people to consider a more balanced perspective, or at the very least lay off it a bit. Either way it’s not your job to make him change his mind. Don’t feel pressured to argue with him if he’s just saying stuff to irritate you.

This is very familiar to me actually! I had a few crushes when I was younger very similarly to how you described it — feeling that someone is really cool or interesting, but never really feeling attached to the idea of dating them. One that stands out to me is when me and my friend both had a crush on the same girl (I think I was 13/14?) and her being worried that it was a big deal, when I just found it pretty funny and was generally nonchalant about it. I’d had a crush on her for about a year at that point, but talking about it with my friend made me realise shortly afterwards that I didn’t want to confess because I wasn’t interested in dating her. (This is also the last crush I remember having). Like you, when I didn’t get to confess to crushes or get together with them, it never actually bothered me. I’ve come across the term “squish” as well and while it could possibly be applicable to my former crushes, I still tend to think of them as crushes. And I still consider myself aromantic, so you’re definitely not alone!