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For November Carnvial of Aros: Commitment Last month I posted the following: "For story research / practice / curiosity ... who wants to have a DEFINE THE RELATIONSHIP conversation with me? I am curious if defining relationships would bring me more connection / happiness / calm. If so it'll be good practice for continuing doing that. My characters have to define their relationships, yet I rarely do. So fair's fair." And someone agreed. (They also agreed I could write this blog post) The Research I don't know if this is an aplatonic thing, a me thing, or an internet thing - but I have a very poor memory for interactions with individuals, instead I remember how I feel about interactions in the space or group with a decent memory of specific interactions but not who specifically was involved.  An upside of online relationships is there's a digital trail. I was able to skim through our past interactions to get a baseline for the type of interactions I enjoyed with

Disclaimer: theories of marginalization and privilege.  The November Carnival of Aces prompt is Invisible Activism . My interpretation of this prompt is a smidge roundabout, so hold on to something. A key part of activism is understanding the needs and concerns of everyone in the community you advocate for, including those whose experiences and intersections are invisible (or low visibility).  Spectrum of Visibility Identities and experiences exist on a spectrum of visibility. Their noticeability may shift over time and can be affected by your choice to disclose, how you express yourself, where you are, who you spend time with, and more.  I choose to speak frequently about asexuality, which increases the visibility of this identity.  The low visibility of my gender is a choice I make and could change in the future. My health conditions are classified as "invisible illnesses," however their visibilities fluctuate. They become more noticeable as a symptoms flare up or I may

Timely Questions Will you participate in or support Aromantic Spectrum Awareness Week (ASAW) in February? How? What can you do with this time to prepare? Who can you collaborate with? Who can you follow or promote? Do you have a goal for 2021 related to being an ally? A group project? A resource? An area to learn more about? What are future opportunities you have to be an ally?  What is an ally mistake you have made in the past? Why was it a problem? What did you do to make amends? What can you do going forward? Ally Questions What advice would you give to others on being an ally? What does being an ally mean? Do you have an example of someone being a good ally to you? What ally practices do you hold to? Have there been times when it was difficult to be an ally, or you were not sure how to be an ally? Where could you find support or advice? Being Ace and an Ally Does being ace affect how you are an ally? What would you ask from allies outside the ace community? How can the ace commu

When I first read Brandon Sanderson's announcement about an asexual character , I noted three things: especially in the larger context of queerbaiting, I thought it was very respectful to his fans to acknowledge possible disappointment and explain the decision he has sensitivity readers and mentioned the decision was based on how the character feels (which means this wasn't a quick grab for diversity points) the character seems* to deprioritize their asexuality, which is an ace experience that I am happy is getting representation I was happily spreading the word, when someone countered that this was disrespecting the character's wishes and used a quote from the very article I'd just read and shared. “______ would prefer you focus on other aspects of [their] identity, rather than [their] sexuality.” I've gone down a rabbit hole thinking about this, and haven't entirely made up my mind. So here's a set of questions to get your head spinning too. 

Queer Lit Readathon Round 6 is November 29th to December 5th 2020. [IMAGE: Queer Lit Readathon Challenges for Round Six. Source ] Normally, if there's a bingo board, I want to go for blackout. I even made a plan for round six that required at least five hours of reading a day and titles of gloomier genres. So I tossed out that plan.  Just because I have an impulse to blackout the bingo board, doesn't mean I have to follow it.  Instead, I came up with a 3 goal challenge centered around personal reading goals and dusting off my digital shelves. It even had a semi-reasonable rate of sampling two titles or collections a day.  Aaaaaand then I decided to simplify to one priority goal. Because I could use more calm and simplicity in my life.  Goal: Allo Aro Reads A poem, flash fiction, or web comic chapter a day - or more 💛💚 Reason 1: Balance My Free Online Aspec Fiction, Poetry, etc is not balanced. I suspect there are fewer aro and specifically alloaro narratives in existance (c

I didn't question it at first when I noticed some of my more recent posts had hit 30-40 views. I did notice the lack of comments, but I thought maybe that's just how the blog community rolls.  And unlike with Youtube stats, I can't see how much of each piece of viewed content was consumed. So maybe a lot of the views were click through. Or maybe I wasn't presenting content in a way that encouraged comments. So, I took the boost in views as inspiration to try to put out a post a day and see what sticks. Only the new posts were getting 0-1 views (which makes more sense seeing as how new my blog is and that I have yet to put time into exploring and commenting on others' blogs).  At which point I checked the stats.  [IMAGE: drastic spike to 392 views on November 12, 2020, then it flatlines back to near zero.]   [IMAGE: Romania 382] I googled "blogger views from romania" and discovered that this is a scam where they are hoping I would click the link that direct

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 like having the space to dig deeper.  [Image is the album cover "Called out in the Dark." There is a cube of galaxies with a red border on a black background.] Spotify link to Wonderland by Melissa Adams   "I'm not Snow White, but I'm lost inside this forest. I'm not Red Riding Hood, but I think the wolves have got me. Don't want your stilettos. I'm not not Cinderella." I'm absolutely reading into this (it's what I do) but to me this is about those who are not fairy tale characters can still have some of the experiences of fairy tale characters. Therefor, those who are not romantic (whether aroman

  What did I do? "And I feel like with other orientations there's not that much to research as far as I know? Like if you like the same gender, I don't know, there's not really nuance? Maybe there is? I don't know. If you have an opinion about that comment it." Why is it a problem? Although I catch myself and realize I don't know what I'm talking about - I have set it up that it would be new information to me if realizing you are gay was not inherently simpler than asexuality. I was once upset by someone saying they didn't think it would be that hard or take that long to figure out you were asexual. I feel that seeing someone being skeptical of or struggle to comprehend the existance of your experience can be upsetting. The phrasing also implies that all gay realizations are simple and all ace realizations are complex. What can I do to make amends? I changed the video to unlisted. The only way to view it now is in the context of this blog post.  H

  Happy  Aro Movies Monday ! A weekly call on Aggresively Arospec's Tumbr for movies that " you identify with from an arospec perspective or the ones you think the community should avoid." The original intention of Aro Movies Monday is to submit movies to Aggresively Arospec, but I like having the space dig deeper.  [Image from Netflix. Enola Holmes, played by Millie Bobby Brown, is at the front in a fancy red dress. Behind her is a large magnify glass filled with the other characters. There is a teal background with bird silhouettes and washed out images of London buildings.] Reasons I liked Enola Holmes: SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS Enola is raised with limited exposure to amatonormativity. She is encouraged by her mother to be independent and not let a boy get in the way of a mission. However, she makes choices based on her feelings and not her mother's expectations. When Enola first saves the romantic lead, it is out of sympathy not romance. When she seeks him out t

For preptober* I gave a handful of presentations and workshops on topics such as motivation and representation. A fellow presenter asked how I managed the time and the group. I decided to turn my answer into a blog post 🥳 When you have too much content: ·   send out an interest survey to find out what concepts people already know and what concepts people want to know more about.  o Which of the following have you heard of? o Which of the following would benefit you? (include an "other" option to fill in) ·   pick an angle/theme that you wish to talk about / you think you have something unique to add ·   replace some concepts with links to quality sources For structure: ·   I had three topics. Each topic had a discussion question (with possible answers to mention if people aren't chatty) and 2 activities. For each item I estimated how much time it would take. I also built in time buffers for side topics. ·   You can practice talking through an agenda item to get a rough

I produce a lot of words. Between journaling, brainstorming, blogging, and fiction it's generally 2000 to 5000 words a day, unless I'm in a bad mood. And even then, I'll usually hit 500 to 1000.  But the human body (especially one with a bucket of health issues includuing mysterious recurring voice loss 🥳 ) is not meant to produce that many words using one method only. So, I rotate between typing, dictating, and handwriting.  I have found that speech-to-text programs are not great with a sonero concepts ... hold on ... a send arrow concepts... sigh ... ACE&ARO concepts. You see what I mean? The problem is not just that the words are replaced with a similar sounding phrase that you could puzzle out. The problem is that the program will take the confusing sounds and try to blend them into surrounding words or split them into one-syllable words that fit the predicted sentence structure, but no longer resemble the sounds you made. After which the sentence is distorted to

 After the October 2020 TAAAP conversation about activism and accountability, Cinnamon's point about how POCs shouldn't have had to "throw digital rocks" stuck with me.  This got me thinking about what I can do to not force others to do the emotional labor of calling me out. I started a self-accountability practice where I review past projects knowing what I know now about generalizing and microaggressions. The very first video I checked had a problem, as did many others. I could have quietly erased my past mistakes and made a private note to myself to do better. Instead I chose to take the approach of 1) reduce future harm by removing or flagging the mistake, 2) make amends for the harm already caused, and 3) publicly collect my mistakes.  I made a mistakes page where I list the mistakes I've made, explain why they are a problem, what I did to make amends, and what I can do going forward. I have concerns this is a terrible idea . So let's think this through.

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 like having the space to dig deeper.  [Video of "Mad at Disney." salem ilese wears a rapunzel length long braid and big ears.] I wasn't the first person to think of "Mad at Disney" by salem ilese for Aro Tunes Thursday.  "I'm mad at Disney, Disney They tricked me, tricked me Had me wishing on a shooting star But now I'm twenty something I still know nothing 'Bout who I am or what I'm not" This stanza made me think about how amatonormativity hurts more than aces and aros. Maybe being aroace is a smaller factor toward spending much of my twenty-somethings not knowing what I wanted. Instead, maybe

What did I do? I made a 90 second video about how I like seeing ace friendships in fiction. I used Holly from Perfect Rhythm by Jae as an example. Holly is homoromantic asexual. She has an online aromantic asexual friend who has a QPR. She has an in person friend of unknown orientation who isn't very interested in dating. Aces don't exist in a vacuum. I like seeing ace-ace friendships. I like seeing an ace character's attitude toward dating can lead them to befriend someone with similar views. Can you spot the problem?

Happy Aro Movies Monday ! A weekly call on Aggresively Arospec's Tumbr for movies that " you identify with from an arospec perspective or the ones you think the community should avoid." The original intention of Aro Movies Monday is to submit movies to Aggresively Arospec, but I like having the space dig deeper.  [Image from The Queen's Gambit  on Netflix, a white woman with red hair and an intense stare is moving a chess piece.] This may not be a movie, but let's talk about it anyway! I assumed it was a movie, and when the credits played at the end of episode one with nothing resolved or connected, I was quite confused 😛 Reasons I connected to The Queen's Gambit When Beth is invited to a social club, all they talk about is boys and Beth feels disconnected. Beth is surrounded by men, which means she has a variety of relationships with men: quasi-romantic, sexual, adversarial, casual friends, put-your-life-back-together friends. There is a man she's enamor

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 like to dig deeper into the lyrics and why they hold meaning to me. I make no commitment to the frequency or duration of this series. It depends on if I run across a song I'm inspired to write about. 💚 [Image: Polaris album cover. Dimly lit purple flowers against a black background.] I've been listening to "The Fire" by "Eclipses for Eyes" on repeat this week. At first it was just a song with a tempo and angst-level that fit my there's-a-US-election-with-big-and-lasting-impact-and-I-control-nothing mood. I didn't think too much about the lyrics until the refrain got stuck in my head. "The fire inside of