Looking Ahead to 2023 - A Preview of This Year's Posts

Image description: A stylized aromantic flag, created by me using the website Canva. Since my 2022 wrap-up used the ace flag, I thought the aro flag would be perfect for this post so they can both sit side by side.

It’s that time of year again! As the holidays leave us and we arrive at the beginning of January, I’ve returned from my brief Christmas break to begin another year of analyzing the good, the bad, and the ugly when it comes to asexuality and aromanticism in media. And of course, I want to kick things off by taking a look at the posts I have planned for this year in my 2023 preview! As always, some of these topics may not be included in 2023 after all due to new ideas cropping up, a topic requiring more time or research, or any other number of things that necessitate me moving the schedule of posts around. Additionally, some of these topics may not show up verbatim, but instead might be combined with other topics or altered to work better. But hopefully they’ll all show up in some way, shape, or form even so.

Early in the year, I’ll be kicking things off with a continuation of a 2022 post. Back in September, I did a post all about the concept of filtering media, centered around a specific filtering service called VidAngel. At the time I did that post, I hadn’t yet experimented with VidAngel’s actual mechanics, so that post was purely about my thoughts on the concept. Right away this year, I’d like to actually test VidAngel out and discuss if I find it useful for my own purposes. From there, we’ll be approaching the romantic season of Valentine’s Day, which also marks my blog’s third anniversary. I’ll of course be doing a special post on that day, and will likewise be packing the weeks around Valentine’s Day with posts about relationships of all kinds – whether friendships, romances, or not-quite-romances. I’m really looking forward to those posts and I hope they deliver.

Another thing I’ll be carrying over from 2022 is actually something requested by a comment on a post from 2021. A few months back, I had a comment on my post about Data’s family in Star Trek: The Next Generation asking me if I would ever consider doing a post on the character of Odo from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Way back when I did my very first Star Trek post, I actually had considered discussing Odo, but ran out of time, and somehow never got back to the character. I’d like to rectify that mistake this year and explore some questions around the character of Odo. What aspec tendencies does he have? As a Changeling – a race of shapeshifting aliens whose natural state is actually a liquid – does he fall victims to the same tropes as other non-human races in Star Trek? How are his relationships portrayed in the series and why? I’m very much looking forward to this and am so flattered that this reader not only read my posts, but is curious to hear my analysis. Thank you so, so much!

Speaking of Star Trek (I know you all are shocked), I’m planning a few sequel posts this year, chief among them being a second post under the theme “Redefining the Future.” My first “Redefining the Future” post had a lot of material cut from it due to length and a whole lot of notes I didn’t even get a chance to include at all, so I’ve decided that another post exploring this theme even more is necessary. I’ll also be doing follow up posts to my “Tropes I Hate” post with a whole other slate of tropes that make my blood boil and will be back with even more quirky aspec headcanon characters near the end of the year.

Rather than focus on specific series this year, I’ve decided to tackle a few topics that might be difficult to explain at first glance, but which I think will yield really interesting analysis. For instance, one of the topics on the roster for this year is something I’m currently calling “When Is Vague Too Vague?” – which, ironically enough, is a rather vague title. But what I’m hoping to explore with this post is the notion of vague or ambiguous representation, instances where characters are implied to be aspec or aspec-adjacent, but aren’t explicitly stated to be. While sometimes this type of vague representation can be great because it gives people like me the room to make headcanons, other times I have to wonder if vague is “too vague,” making it impossible to untangle things in any type of productive manner.

This year, I’ll be exploring quite a few other difficult to quantify topics like that one and will also be taking a look at things like aspec stereotypes. You may be wondering how this differs from my Tropes series in 2020 or my “Tropes I Hate” posts, but the main difference is that these will be stereotypes that, on the surface, may seem positive to aspec people or may even be prevalent in aspec communities. Rather than be saturated in aphobia, these stereotypes are perhaps meant kindly or have good intentions – such as considering an aspec person to be “pure-hearted” – but I want to explore how these sentiments can sometimes lead to misunderstandings and mischaracterizations of aspec people and their identities. Again, another topic that might sound odd or difficult to explain on the face of it, but one that I hope yields some great opportunities for analysis.

I also hope to do a few more book review posts this year. Book review posts are one of those things that I always say I’ll do in abundance when I begin planning the year and which often get dwindled as the year goes on due to the length of time they take. As of right now, I have four planned, and while I don’t know if I’ll get to all four, I’m very dedicated to at least doing one specifically. You may remember my 2020 review of the novel Archivist Wasp by Nicole Kornher-Stace, as well as my 2022 review of its sequel Latchkey, and my general admiration of the author. At the end of my Latchkey review, I expressed my deep interest in Kornher-Stace’s standalone novel Firebreak and immediately placed it on my list for 2023. I’m still very eagerly looking forward to that, so I will definitely make sure I make time for that this year if nothing else and can’t wait to share my thoughts on it with you all.

If all goes well, I will also be hitting a very exciting milestone at the end of the year – my 100^th post! I have no ideas yet about what I’m going to do for this post, but I’m sure something will present itself to me as I go throughout the year and I’m very, very excited for it, whatever it may be. All these benchmarks – three years since I started, one hundred total posts – they’re all absolutely crazy to me. While I sometimes struggle with willpower and consistency, this blog has proven to me that I am indeed capable of getting things done when they matter, and that has been extremely valuable. I hope that these posts, this blog, and my analysis has been valuable for you to in some way too, and that it continues to be so.

As we move into 2023, there is so much I want to do with this blog and beyond. If all goes well, I hope to have even more aspec analysis coming this year, so please keep your fingers crossed for me and send me your good thoughts as I get into even more specific aspec topics. Thank you very much for sticking with me on this journey and I hope to see you again this year as we continue to explore the good, the bad, and the ugly when it comes to aspec representation in media!