CharCharChar

I was stressing out about writing a careful and nuanced post about words having boundaries, and the ethics of label policing, and power dynamics and harm, and determining valid harm from manufactured harm - when I decided to chill instead. So, let's chill. [Image: a cloud and blue sky] Breathe in. Breathe out. Feel where your body touches the surfaces that support it. If you're comfortable doing so, close your eyes.  You might not be able read with your eyes closed. If so, don't close your eyes.   Hear the sound of the rain. Hear it splatter and ping on different surfaces. Hear it trickle over the curb and merge into a tiny stream. Smell the wet asphalt. Shiver as the rain pulls the temperature down a few degrees. Hear the thunder rumble overhead. Count and hold your breath. One one thousand, two one thousand, three. See the lightning flash in the distance.  Look up and see thin metal ribbing branching out under a purple nylon canopy.  [Image: ...

Cross-posted on  Asexual Agenda . Lately I have been struggling with “ethical perfectionism” with my aspec content. It’s like regular perfectionism where it’s hard to start and then it’s hard to finish, but with the fun twist of using ethics to justify the behavior. Afterall, it’s not untrue that a degree of double-checking before you share is important in aspec spaces where nuance keeps the peace. And peace is good. I like peace. It’s not that I worry people will disagree with what I create, it’s that if I accidentally erase or invalidate someone I am very aware of how much that hurts. Then there’s an unpleasant jumble of “I caused pain” and “someone dislikes me” and “they are right to dislike me” and “I failed to not cause pain”. But I can’t predict what I don’t know, and if I don’t know I’m erasing or invalidating you, then I can’t prevent myself from doing it. And rereading and revising a piece doesn’t magically make me aware of that which I don’t yet know. It’s not that I wo...

Disclaimer: I am not a professional.  The following exercises and advice I have pick up or made up along my own journey practicing self care when writing from negative experience. Take care of yourself. Check in with your emotions before, during, and after these exercises. You are responsible for your emotional health. Be kind to yourself. Image is Page 1 of CharCharChar's "Self Care when Writing from Negative Experience"  PDF version of this blog post. Self Care  Schedule time for self-care after writing the hardest scenes. A video call with a friend.  A light hearted movie you’ve been looking forward to. An art project. Play a writing game. Hydrate. Avoid writing about painful topics in the last several hours before you sleep. Don’t write painful topics in the room you sleep in, and definitely not in bed. Your mind associates activities with places. Protect your sleeping space from negative memories that could make it difficult to rest. Set a time limit on your w...

  What can you do when beta readers complain your use of singular they/them pronouns for a nonbinary character is confusing? First, find out how familiar your beta reader is with preferred pronouns and singular they/them. Is it a general discomfort with a concept they haven't had much exposure to? Are there specific moments in your work where the beta reader couldn't tell which character or characters were being reffered to? Quick Fixes Include context tags like "shakes their head" where by context "they" must be singular because a group has plural heads. To emphasize it is just one person, try "they alone. To emphasize multiple people, try "all of them" and "they both." You can use "the (adjective) ones," "the ones (prepositional phrase)," "Jim, Jose, and Sara," or "the couch sitters." Medium Effort Fixes Give the nonbinary character a very short nickname and replace most of the pronouns with ...

For Carnival of Aros October 2020 Disclaimer: arophobia, specifically internalized arophobia I have felt. June 2020 On yet another walk, "it is better to have loved and lost" popped into my head and struck me as strictly untrue. While there were pleasantries to being in a committed pairing, such social conveniences did not make up for the lurking awareness of the hollowness of my automated reciprocation of romance and the hurt of rejection when they became aware of the disconnect. It dawned on me that defaulting to theoretically panromantic was yet another lie. I stumbled into quoiromantic and then inched myself into the deep end of plain old aro.  I begrudgingly let go of the assumption that eventually I would find my person, something would click, and all the happy romantic entrapments story after story promised me would be mine.   October 2020 I learned the Carnival of Aro's prompt was "priorities". The host asked "how important is aromanticism...

Happy Aro Tunes Thursday ! A weekly call on Aggresively Arospec's Tumbr for songs that "make you feel proudy arospec" or "you feel like claiming for the community for no particular reason." The original intention of Aro Tunes Thursday is to submit songs to Aggresively Arospec and see all the songs others submitted. But I'm in the mood to dig deep into the lyrics and why they hold meaning to me. Maybe I'll do this on future Thursdays too.  [Image: The album cover of "Fake It" by Seether. A mildly spooky face on a dark background.] Music Video for Fake It by Seether (TW: sexy dancing/clothes) I remember listening to this song during a winter break from college. I was nannying out of state, which led to a surreal out-of-my-norm repition of pushing a stroller on bright warm winter days over pristine sidewalks, shaded by tall smooth walls and seems-fake-to-me palm trees. I'd pivot the stroller around hedges and black metal fences. I'd peek t...

😞 I am unhappy with the URL for this blog. At the moment it is "charcharcharace" and I have a matching email account.  While it was easy to update the title of the blog to "CharCharChar AAAAA" which is a better match to how I feel, if I change the URL then links to three of my most visited posts will die. And then how will posterity know what I shared in September 2020?  Reasons to Change It wouldn't be The Hardest Thing in the World to reach out to the three places that linked to my blog and ask them to update the link (and if they won't, no big deal). But the longer I wait to make this decision, the harder it will be to run around link swapping.  I'm also reluctant to change the URL because it's likely my perception of myself is not done changing and never will be. Changing the URL now could still mean wanting to change it in the future. If I change the URL to "charcharcharaaaaa" is that prone to typos in the number of A's or someone...

Disclaimers "This is a scattered bunch of thoughts and notes on some of the things that were discussed about activism in the September TAAAP Pride Chats .  There’s no solid thesis here, but maybe a few conversation starters. Some of what’s here is a post-chat thought and wasn’t even discussed at all.  This should also be taken as incomplete and not a full overview of what was discussed.  (Notably, it doesn’t include much of what went on in the voice chats.)" - explanation copied from redbeardace's Chat Notes. See end of post for links.  There is no ONE WAY to be aplatonic.  Prompts 1. What kind of aplatonic resources are there or should there be? 2. How do you respond to platonic "I love you"s? 3. How do you define platonic attraction? 4. If you're aplatonic, do you consider it a major part of your identity? Have you ever come out as aplatonic? 5. If you experience other attractions, how does your platonic attraction or your aplatonicism interact with th...