Hello World – Great Ace Club Discussion Questions

May 3, 2021November 18, 2021Leave a comment

The Hello World Discussion Questions are here! GreatAce.Club is our sister book club. It mostly reads asexual books by asexual authors for asexual readers, but has expanded to read really whatever our host Amy wants. Because great books are great books and aces can do whatever they please. April’s book was Hello World , the first in the .Exe series!

Brew up that cup of coffee because it’s discussion time!

GreatAce.Club - Coffee Time! - Hello World Paperback Discussion Questions

Hello World Week One Discussion Questions

Hello World deals a lot with technology, data, and what it means to be a person living with that. What do you think about the world we are currently living in?

What do you think is more important, convenience or privacy? How much privacy should society be willing to give up to feel safe? To have information and necessities at their fingertips?

It’s a common trope in media for a character to be motivated to save a loved one. How do you predict Scott will undertake this going forward?

Like all good techy books, Hello World takes pieces of technology that already exist and create logical extensions from them. What technology can you see existing now or in the near future that we’ve experienced in these first few chapters?

We are already getting a sense of what Scott and Sonia’s relationship will be. What can you pick up on how they will befriend each other, or more? What are your predictions about their relationship?

What sort of qualities do you think UltSyn wants for its HIDs?

Besides college job fairs, where do you think UltSyn looks for candidates?

Hello World Week Two Discussion Questions

~~Have I mentioned recently that I love Scott? Because I love Scott.~~ Now that we are getting into the thick of things, there is so much more to discuss, especially as we start to see more discussion about Scott’s asexuality. Without further ado, let’s read!

As we begin to see more asexual characters in media (see: FuckYeahAsexual’s Character Database or even the Goodreads List), and as asexuality becomes seen more in the mainstream, creators may begin to think about how to incorporate asexual characters into their work. What do you think about how Scott talks about his sexual attraction? Does it match with your own feelings as being ace?

Sinclair and Tauber have so much deliberate representation in Hello World. How many casual LGBT+ characters can you pick up on? Is this something you think is going to continue in more mainstream books? Out of the characters mentioned in this section, is there anyone you want to learn more about? Anyone you want to see in future books?

HIDs are pieces of technology, but they are also people. This is definitely something that the people fighting against UltSyn have to deal with. Do you think that Scott or Terry or Jesse feel the same way about Sonia? What do you think about the morality of HIDs in general? If UltSyn is using them for nefarious purposes, what is the best way to fight back?

Discuss Scott’s choice to sell Sonia. Did it make sense at the time? What did Jesse get out of it besides money? Do you think Jesse is a double agent, or just in it for whoever pays more?

Scott almost immediately regrets his actions. What does this tell you about his character?

Sinclair and Tauber do a lot to humanize their characters, like Scott “pretending” to get a text. How does this make the book more relatable? When’s a time you’ve done something similar?

How many people in Hello World are “just doing their jobs” despite basically experimenting on other human beings? How is a reflection of the real world?

We finally get our first Sonia chapter! What do we learn about her from her actions in this chapter?

How is their relationship changing? What predictions do you have about them?

In between the fast paced action, Sinclair and Tauber insert moments of humanity, like shopping in Paris. How does that help us associate with the characters more? What can we learn about them in these moments of relative quiet?

What technology in this section have you seen happening in real life? What technology would you like to see?

What predictions do you have about the party? What are you hoping will happen?

GreatAce.Club - Hello World Paperback Discussion Questions

Hello World Discussion Questions Week 3

We left off last week with Scott and Sonia preparing to go to the fancy UltSyn party! What do you think they’re going to find there? Let’s read on to find out!

What do you think Scott found in the office?

Do you think all of Scott’s hijinks might spur UltSyn to tighten their security? What could this mean for Scott and Sonia in the future?

Could Scott’s background and experience with UltSyn and HIDs affect how he sees Sonia? Is seeing her as a person first different from how others would see and therefore treat her? Do you think Sonia is different from other HIDs? How could Scott’s treatment help her as well?

In what ways do Sinclair and Tauber use real life security hacks in Hello World? Which things stand out to you as something real people or companies should be concerned about?

After seeing this second HID, does to confirm any belief that Sonia is different? What do you think happened to make her different? What struggles might Scott have if this is how most HIDs behave?

It is easy to see that in universe, HIDs are not considered entirely human. Does this track with how real life humans act about each other? How might incorporating people and technology change society’s view of them?

What have we learned about both Scott and Sonia so far, using the humanizing sections of the book? How has this changed from the beginning of the book?

How does what UltSyn does match up with real world for-profit health care companies?

What do we learn about Scott’s motivations in this section?

Is Scott and Sonia’s relationship fair? Why or why not?

What might Sonia find in her search for her family?

We are ending on quite the cliffhanger! What predictions do you have about what will happen in Denmark?

Hello World Discussion Questions Week 4

Ready to pick up in Denmark? Who has time for an intro when there’s cliffhangers to get through!

How does Scott use his understanding of Sonia to track her? How does this compare to real life tracking and how could UltSyn also use this knowledge?

Do you think UltSyn sends people after Sonia who have knowledge of her life before being an HID? Would that help them or hinder them?

What are some possible meanings of Sonia’s tattoo?

Does one person ever have an obligation or right to withhold information about another from that person? Would you want to know bad information about your past or prefer to leave it there?

Is Sonia/Lydia’s reaction to losing her family appropriate? How might someone dealing with grief react to the promise of losing their memories?

What implications does Sonia’s background raise about HIDs? About UltSyn?

”Sometimes, one act of kindness can change everything.” How does this quote really describe Scott?

At this point and after having several Sonia chapters, how is she different from other HIDs? What might this do to Scott’s expectations about his sister?

What were your thoughts and emotions as the scene with Victoria played out? Should Scott or Sonia have seen this coming? What could they have done to prevent it?

How does almost losing someone we love bring out our feelings? How do we see that in Sonia taking care of Scott?

How much of what Scott is going through is related to his physical wound, shock, and the mental toll of Victoria? What do you think will help him the most?

What do we learn about Sonia with her actions while Scott is hurt? Is what she did brave, foolish, or some combination?

What do you think would help get Scott out of his despair? Is it possible that even knowing it would be hard, he didn’t realize how hard it would be? Is he too close to this situation?

What do we learn about the HID program and UltSyn from Sonia and Victoria talking?

Could the first step of HID deprogramming be developing sarcasm? 2/2 HIDs say yes!

We get an opportunity to see more of Scott’s asexuality. How do you relate to this?

We are leaving this section off in one of the humanizing areas. What are we learning about Scott and Sonia? Where could their relationship be going?

What predictions do you have for the end of the book? What role will Victoria and Sonia play in working against UltSyn? Scott got his sister back; now what?

Hello World Discussion Questions Week 5

Amy here again, I’ve fully learned how to hijack the publisher’s accounts after reading Hello World! 😉 You know the posts that are like “when everything is wrapped up but there’s still a lot of pages left”? Am I the only one feeling that way about Hello World? If we stop here, they can all just live happily ever after, right? Just kidding! Let’s read on to see how Scott’s motivations might change and how Victoria will play a part in that!

Scott throughout the book very much claims to work on his own and to be in it for himself; but is he really? If his actions cause consequences that expose UltSyn, does that mean he did something selfless, even if he didn’t mean to? How much of his actions are actually selfish?

How does having Victoria back change him? How does it change Sonia?

We get to learn more about Terry and his crew in the last part of the book. Who are you hoping to see again in the sequel?
What benefits are there in having a secure home base? How can it also be a liability?

How many people in UltSyn do you think know about the system? How could the people of UltSyn be exploiting the system for their own advancement? How do people in real life do that?

How does needing to take down a computer system change the narrative of taking UltSyn down? How does this change the central conflict of the series?

Scott finally tells someone he’s asexual in this final section. How does this confirm the behavior and thoughts we’ve already seen? How does his description match or not match with your experiences?

What does Sonia’s reaction say about her?

What are some benefits of Scott being part of a group now? What might be some drawbacks?

How is the system different than what they expected?

Do Scott and Victoria get a happily ever after? What does coming home mean to both of them? To their parents?

How could UltSyn exploit this? How motivated do you think they are to do so?

Share your favorite parts of the book; what did you love the most? What do you hope to see in the sequel? Do you have any favorite quotes or characters? We’d love to see them here or in the #GreatAceClub tag!

Did you see any overarching themes or tones you found while reading?

What does the teaser chapter hint at in the next book? What could this mean for Scott and Sonia?

Can we peer pressure Art Over Chaos Publishing ~~(wait a second…)~~ to release the next book sooner? ~~(Warning: Amy’s peer pressure is coming from inside the house!!!)~~ Be sure to sign up for the newsletter at GreatAce.Club to be the first to see what May’s read is!

We hope you found these discussion questions about Hello World helpful to your book club, or just yourself looking to connect with fellow readers at your own pace. If you haven’t picked up a copy of Hello World, there hasn’t been a better time. New cover, and new teaser for book two included in the updated version. Catch you all later!

GreatAce.Club - Hello World Discussion Questions

Ace Day History Through My Eyes

July 3, 2020November 18, 2021Leave a comment

Hi! My name is Rose and in 2013 I founded the Fuck Yeah Asexual blog. Two years later, The Asexuality Blog and I created Ace Day! It’s a cheerful, digital event that focuses on celebration of self and the whole asexual spectrum. I celebrate it on May the 8th! We need to back up earlier into 2015 however.

In April 2015 TAB asked to help with Ace Day. There was some raised concern about its proximity to 2015’s Blackout Day and Trans Day of Visibility. Both of which may have an influence The Asexuality’s Blog’s (TAB) desire to make an event for aces. That isn’t uncommon behavior now, or back then.

I was asked “Thing?” And repled “Wooo thing!” You see, everyone on tumblr was trying to make new things to celebrate. Twitter still does this, but tumblr doesn’t anymore really. Ace Day wasn’t themed off Blackout Day. But I can’t deny the repeated word usage between “Ace Visibility Day” and TDoV. A solution to which I pretty such said, ‘Ace Day works better anyways. Let’s go with that instead’. The event was also never meant to be a selfie event. They were encouraged. Even popular way to celebrate the day in 2015. (Tumblr doesn’t do selfies a lot anymore, even though LGBTQ selfies are now a weekly Twitter thing, but I digress.)

If TAB and I had to make a choice, I’d make my point but deferred to her. She was the original lead. The date was an issue from the start. Any dates were. And continues to be an issue to some. In 2015, largely aphobes said “Hey, this is so close to other stuff it’s distracting. ” We both agreed that time.

The democratic solution of voting

I ran a poll with the most common suggestions of new days. It was a strawpoll so people on tumblr, twitter, and elsewhere could take part. 5200+ people voted, 2100~ people picked ‘May the 8th. (May The Ace)’. It’s the only time Ace Day was put up to a clear, correct, and multi-community wide vote.

In 2015, I wrote a lot about why the asexual community deserved a pride focused day in the first place. Said there shouldn’t be restrictions to when, where, and how pride is shown. That an event should be reserved for aces. Instead of actively working on allo awareness that day. I gave my reasons on why I liked May the best. For the word play of “May the ace be proud”. To be in the first half of the year away from Asexual Awareness Week. I also pointed out that people did not want aces to celebrate at all. That no matter what we did, or what day we picked , there would be a pushback. (This isn’t an ace specific problem either. Happens for every trending LGBTQ event.)

In the following months, TAB and I decided to put an Art Book together. So many people drew things specifically for the 2015’s Ace Day. The first time anything ace trended on Tumblr. TAB did the legwork of buying our Creative Aces domain. I contacted all the artists, formatted, published what turned into the first ever asexual art book, What You See. It released in October 2015 during Asexual Awareness Week as a throwback to everyone’s celebrations on May 8th.

Around this time, TAB gained increasing criticism largely about the date, tells me she wants to move it to November. I told her that was silly given since we had a general consensus. Extra silly seeing as the art book was already done. And even more art mentioned the celebration earlier that year. But in the end, she wanted to move it to November.

I don’t have the message anymore, but she was run down. Burnt out by people still trying to pick a new day. She thought people would allow the ace community “International Cake Day”. That caused it’s own problems being too close to American Thanksgiving. Other’s hated the day for further associations with cake memes. (Which is totally unfair.)

All I could tell her something like ‘okay, do what you want. November is really bad for me. I won’t be able to participate much at all.’ Ace Day went pretty dormant after that. Both personally, and as a trend. Allo awareness wasn’t the importance or goal of the day anyways so whoever celebrated still found joy I hope. Any fond memories with other dates are wonderful, just not a history I have to share. To me it started to feel like how someone celebrates International Something-You-Like Day. You remember it only days before, or even the day of, and you cheer for a bit then move on.

5 years later, its now early May 2020. An active aro ace on twitter tweets me saying “May 8th Ace Day?” and AVEN cheers them on. So I basically reply “Awesome! My favorite day for it! Here’s all the fun things I did in 2015 with the “May the ace” slogans. The call for “No pride restrictions” and mentioned the card suit selfies. And that joy sparks wide participation. There’s whole threads I wrote about what that original date meant to me.

This is old tumblr history I was personally there for.

If you never saw The Asexuality Blog running, it’s heartbreaking to say TAB is gone. Has been for a bit now. It broke my heart when she vanished. When people came to me on their own, like “Hey the 8th?” I thought if anyone is in charge of this thing TAB and I did, it’s me. The only one left. With our baby now abandoned and I decided to take care of it the way I knew how. By returning to the heart and origin of the Ace Day. It was heartfelt, and a historical touch point of aces of 5 years ago to aces now.

Things went pretty off the rails shortly after again. Because there’s a history of undermining the community works of tumblr aces. Things willfully misrepresented. Out right ignored, or deliberately undermined. Worse for me is when aces do it to each other. This time the 6 months that followed.

For an aged example, in 2015 the ace community was not one group. (If I ever was.) Nothing shows this more than when AVEN broke a 4 month radio silence to say ‘Ignore those aces. We give you permission to have the A.” A statement that did nothing besides hurt people further. GLADD released an apology to the asexual, aromantic, and agender community. And followed through with remembering a-spec inclusion that reshaped media representation for years. Point being? Similar is happening again.

I felt Tumblr aces were being sold out. Just for hypothetical future allosexual acceptance. Despite the fact that when Ace Day was always meant to be by aces and for aces. That’s why it trended on Tumblr in 2015, and trended on Twitter in 2020. It never needed outside media attention. Was never about allosexuals doing something that day. It was about self love, and love of the whole asexual spectrum.

If you really want a deep dive, you can view the blog’s history on Ace Day. The first link of fuckyeahasexual.tumblr.com/tagged/aceday or use the archive feature and sort by date fuckyeahasexual.tumblr.com/archive.

This history never hidden. Some chose not to look at tumblr aces. Which is why I will never apologize for tumblr links. The bloggers piecing together lost ace history. The ones who made GLADD show up big time, had Big 5 books published staring the very same “tumblr aces.”

Making fun and shunning people from tumblr has always been about attacking the most vulnerable. It’s a fight about respectability politics. It’s targets are largely the trans community and really anyone who breaks a binary.

Thinking a lot these days about a line from a TAB Ace Day Post in 2015.

“We can all be infinitely visible.” – Ace Day 2015

I choked up seeing it again. Nearly just another lost line. Another post that nearly forgotten if not for tumblr’s reblog style. The days after 2020’s Ace Day were a floodlight. History easily rewritten. Eagerly removed from context. Replaced it with whatever someone else wants.

I often think about all of the other activists that said it was too hard. Unsafe, financially unviable to show up, or just emotionally unfeasible to continue. So they become quiet. There are wonderfully clever and effective activists that refuse to touch the community because of subtweeting nature of things. I want the community to be safer, I want it to love itself.

It’s endless. Maybe I know why TAB left. Three mods of fyeah are disabled. The amount of “Oh, do you need help to get more attention?” ever since we’ve spoken more about being disabled blew my mind. I’ve always leaned towards online activism as a writer. Not because I was incapable of doing “bigger things”.

Ace Day wasn’t ever about seeking allo attention. That was neer going to bring our One True and Only source of liberation. It’s goal was to help teach yourself, and be an example for aces around you, how to grow your own self love. And celebrate the differences in even the seemingly the same so aces may have a stronger future. Together.

I don’t know what the new year holds, I just hope it’s brighter for everyone.

Tag: Ace pride