Friday Question: Fictional Characters

The Friday Question: How it works

Every Friday we will pose a question for you all to discuss or privately consider. You can engage with it publicly here on the RFAS blog, or you can join our forum (details below) for a more private discussion. You can write it down to think about later, journal about it, or bring it in to a therapy session with you.

If you would like to volunteer to become a moderator and host future Questions, please email us at volunteer@asexualsurvivors.org—or join our forum and post in the moderator volunteer thread. If you just have an idea for a future Question that you want to share, we have a brainstorming topic on our forum.

Something to Ponder Today

Fiction can sometimes provide us with escape, and a way of processing things that we otherwise might not feel able to release. Sometimes characters remind us of ourselves, allow us to feel less alone, or inspire us to keep going in spite of everything stacked against them. So this week, let’s talk about those characters that touch us, that strengthen us, that come along to remind us of something we needed to hear at just the right time.

What fictional character has helped you on your healing journey, and how so?

• Can be from any medium—book, movie, TV, poetry, songs, mythology, video games… anything!
• They can be ace, of course, but they don’t have to be!
• Alternatively, you could talk about any fictional work that has helped you, if you don’t have a specific character in mind that helped you the most from that work.
• You can also talk about unpublished work of your own, if you’d like.

You don’t have to answer every (or any!) question, of course. These are just different ways to approach the topic which might be helpful to consider.

On the Forum

• You can discuss this question privately after registering at the forum
• Here are instructions for how to join the forum
• Here’s the invite request form
• You can also still discuss previous questions as well. There is no time limit for joining the discussion.

Please note that we are still working things out in the forum, including rules, guidelines, structures, and technical issues. We are gradually letting people in now who are not moderators or volunteers, but it can basically be considered “in beta” for now. So if you do join, please excuse our forum being a bit of a mess while we get everything tested. There may also be a little bit of a wait time for sending out invites.

Note: if you requested an invite a while ago, please check your email (including your spam folder) for an invite code! I sent out a new round of invites this morning, some of which had been caught in our spam filter (if you’re on our mod team, please help us train the filter to be better!). If you requested an invite already but still don’t have an invite code, please contact us!

Here are a couple of things you should know about posting to the forum:

• All posts are private, and can only be viewed by members
• It is against forum rules to discuss any personal stories shared on the forum with anyone who is not a member without permission of the person who shared it
• You can post as anonymous, once you are a member

The Spoiler Tag

You can hide especially triggering details behind a spoiler tag—which also works in blog comments. Here’s an example:

[spoiler title=’Triggering stuff’ collapse_link=’true’]Explicit/triggering material would go here.[/spoiler]

To make one, just type…

[ spoiler ] ... [ /spoiler ]

…without the spaces. I hope that this helps everyone safely navigate this conversation.