I get asked a lot why I don't make the characters in my books explicitly asexual and aromantic if I talk so much on here about fictional representation of strong platonic nonromantic nonsexual relationships, so for #AsexualAwarenessWeek #AceWeek a thread

1. I'm very much a write-the-book-you-want-to-read author--I wrote Archivist Wasp with teenage-me as target audience--and for whatever reason, implicit aroace rep is my preference as a reader. I don't really know why.

2. While it's super important to have that representation for aro and ace readers, it's maybe equally important to show readers who are neither aro nor ace that M/F friendships are still ENTIRELY VALID for EVERYONE and that making them default to romance in fiction is DAMAGING.

3. M/F friendships too often (in fiction, in real life) get treated like a stepping-stone to romance. Platonic relationships are never given the same importance. I've lost count of how many books/movies take a perfectly great pair of besties and shove them into romance together.

4. As an aroace person I am perpetually on the hunt for books/movies/tv/comics/games etc that show relationships that would have made the world make a little more sense to teenage-me. They're hard to find.

5. What teenage-me needed and never really found was depiction of ride-or-die platonic relationships. I had no idea that being aro/ace was a thing. I'd try to explain to friends this idea of being fascinated by a person but with zero sexy/romantic intentions. They were...confused

6. And for all the books and movies and games I consumed, there were no fictional relationships in any of them that I could point to and go THAT. THAT'S THE THING. The closest I came was maybe war movies, possibly the only genre where nonromantic nonsexual intimacy is normalized.

7. But so I went through years of thinking I was fucked up somehow, surrounded by all these media templates of romance- and sex-centered stories, or platonic relationships between women, or between men, but between men and women? Nope. Confusion intensified.

8. So yes, it would have been very very helpful if I'd known what being aromantic or asexual was, back in my teens. Would have made a lot of things clear. And I'm a big believer in normalizing the fictional relationships we want to see normalized in real life. And yet.

9. The older I get, the more fed up I am with the idea that ONLY aromantic or asexual people should be in nonromantic or nonsexual relationships. That if you are open to the idea of romance or sex, then there's no reason for your relationships not to default to that. I hate it.

10. So I write ride-or-die M/F platonic relationships without a single hint of sex or romance--relationships that could be read as aro/ace OR as platonic relationships for their own sake. Regardless of sexuality. Because we badly need to see that represented too. At least I do.

11. The last straw for me was when I was pitching Archivist Wasp & getting rejected for being a YA without romance or sex, and "teens will find nothing to relate to" in a book like that. The teen I used to be got VERY ANGRY INDEED & decided: this is the hill on which I shall die.

12. And so I decided that this is the kind of relationship I'm going to write forever. Recognizable as aro/ace to readers who see themselves in that, but hopefully relatable to others who are in strong M/F friendships and are tired of media treating that as Potential Romance???

13. Anyway, that rambled on longer than intended! I'm really bad at talking about myself, and I don't draft tweets so this is pure messy stream-of-consciousness. But this is a question I get asked regularly and I wanted to take some time and set down a comprehensive-ish answer.

14. I've been fortunate enough to (eventually) find great homes for these books that 100% entirely ignore sex and romance (even in YA!) and I'll always be grateful. But I had to walk away from agents who said they could sell that first book easily if I just wrote a romance in.

15. And I've talked to I don't know how many new writers in the same position, getting pushback for not putting romance or sex in their books. And that's infuriating. I have nothing against that stuff in books, but the idea that ALL books need it? makes me shoot fire from my eyes

16. Okay, I'm shutting up now. Just know that any book of mine you pick up, if you want strong platonic relationships w/o sex or romance, that's exactly what you're going to find. And all good thoughts to those of you writing similar, fighting to get your stories into the world.