there is, in fact, a “platonic explanation for this” if you’re not a coward
its so fun to see the diversity of tags on this ranging from “they’re literally just standing next to each other” to “deep bonds dont have to be romantic/sexual!” to “yeah friends can fuck nasty, platonically. coward.” we’re all so correct, there are, in fact, a million platonic explanations for this
Very Silly Concept: a show called “Accessibility Nightmares” but it’s structured exactly like Kitchen Nightmares. An accessibility specialist goes to different establishments and helps them make their businesses more accessible.
The accessibility specialist asks why the door at the top of the small set of stairs has a wheelchair symbol on it. The owner replies that’s the accessible bathroom. The camera zooms in on the specialist as they process this information.
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A customer with a service dog comes in to a restaurant. The hostess tells them they don’t allow dogs. The accessibly specialist looks over at the hostess like
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And there are web accessibility episodes too. The accessibility specialist stares at the white text on the light pink background of the home page like
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The specialist asks why not a single product picture has alt text, and the business owner says “Well I mean, it’s makeup, why would a blind person be shopping for makeup?” The specialist just
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The specialist asks the web designer how a screen reader user is supposed to complete the captcha portion of the password reset process when there is no audio alternative. The designer admits they don’t know.
I’ve been rereading some of my old travel diaries from my early 20’s, and one of them seriously reads like a slow-burn fanfic. I was on tour with a small indie band and there was a cute guy my age traveling with the band. And we spent two weeks “accidentally” hanging out and sitting close to each other at the merch table in smoky bars and reading Tolkien poetry to each other and taking walks at the beach and sharing food and stargazing and sleeping next to each other on living room floors and giving each other back rubs and talking late into the night gazing into each other’s eyes.
We never kissed. We never even held hands. I pretended to fall asleep on his shoulder once in the car, and one day I gave him a little kiss on the cheek. And that was it. We said goodbye two weeks later and we both thought it was forever and I pined so hard that I threw up.
A month later he sent me an apologetic letter saying that he was sorry for being so presumptuous when I clearly had no romantic interest in him, but that he had to be honest that he was in love with me. And I was like, “What?! He was in love with me this whole time???”
So yeah, we’re married now (celebrated ten years last autumn) but if you’re ever wondering if your slow-burn fic is too slow, or that your characters are too oblivious, just remember me and my now-spouse mutually pining over each other every single second of the day for two weeks without ever saying a word to each other about how we felt. I was reading my own diary yelling, “JUST KISS HIM ALREADY!”
The trick is to not let people know how really weird you are until it’s too late for them to back out.
Absolutely the frak not, the trick is to immediately let people know how weird you are so you scare off the weak ones. The ones who stay because they like how weird you are? Those are the ones you want.
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