stormofsharpthings

[stormofsharpthings]

It's not a virtue to focus totally on your own peace and disregard problems around you. Ironically, it's also not a virtue to stew in your own anxiety.

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Americans, if you donate at least $60 to PBS, you get access to Passport, their streaming service.

The $60 can be a one time donation (access for a year) or $5 a month. (Or of course, you donate more if you have it.)

Passport streams all the PBS programming, so documentaries, mysteries, musical programs, and news that you can get through PBS. Like Grantchester or Wolf Hall or other period dramas, or Ken Burns docs, or cooking shows, travel shows, Lucy Worsley stuff, mysteries, Jane Austen. All the nerdy things!

You also will occasionally get notices about local events where you, as a PBS member, can get in free or discounted to museums or concerts in your area.

This is just a bonus. You can also just donate whatever, whenever you feel like it.

You select a local PBS station but your donation goes across the entire system. You can do monthly or one time.

Also some employers will match donations. Your employer might!

[stormofsharpthings]

Craving Intimacy, Not Contact: A Reflection

Whispered through candlelight and the hush of moss-covered roots, I speak this truth not to the world, but to the moon and the wild within me.

For most of my life, I thought there was something wrong with me.

I could appreciate beauty, feel attraction, even fantasize about intimacy. But when it came time to actually be in the moment with someone else, something always shut off inside me. I felt disconnected, like I was watching myself from the outside. It wasn’t about fear or trauma. It was deeper than that, like the act itself didn't belong to me. Like it was never meant to.

I’ve faked a lot. Faked interest. Faked desire. Faked orgasms. All in the hope that eventually something would click into place. That the switch would flip. That I’d feel what everyone else seemed to feel. But it never happened. And for a long time, I internalized that. I blamed myself. Maybe I was broken. Maybe I was too complicated, too sensitive, too cold.

Then I found a word: aegosexual.

Also known as autochorissexuality, aegosexuality is a type of asexuality where a person can experience sexual thoughts or fantasies, but doesn’t feel the desire to participate in sexual acts themselves. They may enjoy the idea of sex, may even feel desire, but as an observer, not a participant. Desire exists, but it’s removed—detached from physical reality.

Reading that definition for the first time felt like exhaling after years of holding my breath. I wasn’t broken. I just experience desire differently. Quietly. Internally. Safely removed from the messiness of real-world intimacy.

It explained so much: why I’ve always craved closeness and affection, but not contact. Why I can fall into deep, soulful emotional connections but recoil when they turn physical. Why sex feels like something I can watch, write, imagine—but not live.

There is peace in naming something. In saying: this is who I am, and there’s nothing wrong with it.

I don’t know if I’ll always identify as aegosexual. Sexuality is fluid, and I’m open to growth and change. But for now, this word gives me room to breathe. It lets me take ownership of my experience without shame.

I’m not cold. I’m not broken. I’m not confused.

I’m just craving intimacy, not contact.

And that’s enough.

This truth is wrapped in lavender smoke, held close by my spirit guides, and sealed under the waning moon.

[stormofsharpthings]

Any tips on sleeping alone? I've been getting less than 6 hrs nearly every night and it has been. Not Good, ill be real

When I was a kid I’d steal my bio dad’s jacket and wear it to bed. It smelled like his house (cigarettes) and helped me fall asleep. Maybe find a good smell with a positive association that works for you?

A hot shower or bath before bed can work wonders, especially in hot or cold weather.

Wash all your sheets and blankets, then make your bed with the proper sheet tucks and everything. Feels like staying at a fancy hotel for the night.

Make a playlist of your most relaxing music and play it so quiet you can barely hear it.

Find a podcast to listen to, or an old radio play. (I listen to MBMBAM because if I listen to a book or a mystery I get too invested in the plot lol)

Find a set of comfy pyjamas and ONLY wear them at bedtime. This one sounds weird but I find it helps me shift gears into rest mode.

Weighted blanket

Gentle fan

White noise

Orgasm

Meditation

Melatonin

180° horizontal rotation

Change locations and sleep in another room

Move the furniture in your bedroom

Open a window

Talk to your doctor. I personally am on a prescription now because I was always TIRED but never sleepy and needed something to knock me out.

Surround yourself with pillows or rolled-up blankets and towels so you have a bit of side pressure when you lay down.

Wear a heavy work jacket to bed

Change your diet and see if that helps (sugar used to put me out flat)

Let yourself be bored

Wear an eye mask

Plug in a night light

Turn off overhead lights and switch to lamps 1-3 hours before bed

Check out the thrift store for some blackout curtains

Good luck!

[stormofsharpthings]

Les Jardins Mallet-Stevens walkway installation by the architect Robert Mallet-Stevens, Croix, France. Photo by Fabrice @demain_cest_loin_69

[stormofsharpthings]

Karl Bowe and Niko Wirachman

[stormofsharpthings]

Sign Up for the 2025 Inception Reverse Bang!

Calling all artists and writers! Sign ups for the 2025 Inception Reverse Bang have officially opened!

If you want to participate as a pinch hitter or beta (for writers and/or artists), you can also sign up with this form.

Sign ups for artists and writers will close on July 19, so don't wait!

What's a reverse bang? A Reverse Bang is an event in which an artist creates a work of art and then an author claims it to create a fic inspired by the art.

You can participate as an artist, a writer, or both!

Check out our FAQs and Rules here.

Schedule

July 13-19: Sign-ups

1st Artist check-in: August 2

Artist drafts/concept sketches DUE: August 16

August 17-22:  Artworks collection is shared with authors & art claims start

August 23: Assignments are emailed and Author & Artist pairings revealed

1st Writer check-in/2nd Artist check-in: September 13

 2nd Writer check-in: October 4

November 1: Writers’ work DUE. Artist’s finished works DUE.

November 8: Reveal Day

Sign up here!

[stormofsharpthings]

[stormofsharpthings]

if you make a webcomic you will meet many kinds of commenters

THE ONE WHO TYPES IN ALL CAPS!!!!!!1!

Car/Gun/Plane guy who will critique your car/gun/plane

Carl, the cool boomer/gen-Xer who reads it with his kid/grandkid

"how long until the story is finished" or "I'll come back when there's more to read"

the ones who are always normal and good and polite and have nice conversations with each other

"actually I am a [rare profession] and [thing adjacent to my rare profession] doesn't work this way and you should have known that"

the one who only comments in gifs and memes but you understand them so it's okay

"I don't like how this character is developing so slowly on a comic that updates 1 page a week for 20 years"

the one who will always tell you exactly what you drew wrong or inconsistently between pages

the one who only ever leaves one comment but it's the nicest thing anyone has ever said to you

[stormofsharpthings]

you guys need to let go of any rigid belief in what being nonbinary is because it can be anything. like someone can look completely average in gender presentation and do literally nothing to set themselves apart from their assigned gender and still be nonbinary.

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I just dove a shipwreck and ten gajillion sharks were there 🥰

[stormofsharpthings]

[stormofsharpthings]

oops I accidentally separated myself emotionally from everyone to avoid feeling any bad feelings & it worked but at the expense of my sense of connectedness and belonging

[stormofsharpthings]

[stormofsharpthings]

Say what you mean as kindly and clearly as possible.

You might have the urge to hint at what you want instead of saying it outright.

You might want to withdraw and hope someone notices. Or perhaps to act cold or upset and hope they’ll ask what’s wrong. This is testing if they care by making them guess, and it isn't really fair. To you or to them.

You deserve to ask for what you need.

Not through guilt, not through silence, not through passive aggression.

Those behaviors aren’t necessarily “bad” but they’re often survival responses we picked up along the way.

They don’t build the kind of connection we actually want. And they can damage our relationships.

Being direct can feel terrifying.

It can feel like rejection is guaranteed the moment we ask.

But healthy communication means giving people a real chance to show up for us and giving ourselves a chance to be heard.

You don’t have to be perfect at it.

Here are some examples:

“I feel off today and could use some support.”

“I’m feeling lonely. Can I call you?”

“I’m feeling insecure. Can you give me some reassurance?

You are allowed to speak clearly.

You are allowed to ask.

You are allowed to be understood.

You deserve to have your needs met. And your loved ones deserve to not have to guess at it.

[stormofsharpthings]

Not everything needs to be a full story, you know?

If you have just one or two scenes that you’re really excited about, you can just write those. You don’t have to create a full WIP to contain them if you don’t want.

You can create characters without putting them into a project, they can just exist.

You can worldbuild for a universe that you never write about.

If there’s a trope you really want to write, but you don’t have a project to put them in… You can just write the best parts of that trope on its own.

Even if you do have a story and there’s parts you don’t want to write, it’s okay to just write the parts that you’re excited about. You don’t need to write the other parts and make it a full story.

I feel like in writing, there’s a lot of emphasis put on completion and writing a full story.

Completion or a full story doesn’t always have to be the purpose or goal. It’s okay and wonderful to just let something exist on its own without anything else.

[stormofsharpthings]

“It is said that, during the fantasy book in the late eighties, publishers would maybe get a box containing two or three runic alphabets, four maps of the major areas covered by the sweep of the narrative, a pronunciation guide to the names of the main characters and, at the bottom of the box, the manuscript. Please… there is no need to go that far. There is a term that readers have been known to apply to fantasy that is sometimes an unquestioning echo of better work gone before, with a static society, conveniently ugly ‘bad’ races, magic that works like electricity and horses that work like cars. It’s EFP, or Extruded Fantasy Product. It can be recognized by the fact that you can’t tell it apart form all the other EFP. Do not write it, and try not to read it. Read widely outside the genre. Read about the Old West (a fantasy in itself) or Georgian London or how Nelson’s navy was victualled or the history of alchemy or clock-making or the mail coach system. Read with the mindset of a carpenter looking at trees. Apply logic in places where it wasn’t intended to exist. If assured that the Queen of the Fairies has a necklace made of broken promises, ask yourself what it looks like. If there is magic, where does it come from? Why isn’t everyone using it? What rules will you have to give it to allow some tension in your story? How does society operate? Where does the food come from? You need to know how your world works. I can’t stress that last point enough. Fantasy works best when you take it seriously (it can also become a lot funnier, but that’s another story). Taking it seriously means that there must be rules. If anything can happen, then there is no real suspense. You are allowed to make pigs fly, but you must take into account the depredations on the local bird life and the need for people in heavily over-flown areas to carry stout umbrellas at all times. Joking aside, that sort of thinking is the motor that has kept the Discworld series moving for twenty-two years.”

— “Notes from a Successful Fantasy Author: Keep It Real” (2007), Terry Pratchett. (via the-library-and-step-on-it)