Evelyn

Trans women (there's a space, it's not one word) are women. Violence against trans women is violence against women. "A fairly high chance", the chance is 100% because it IS violence against a woman!!

Stop degendering her. And her point was about pinkwashing cop/military propaganda, so she is correct to connect them.

The point is that Top Gun was so successful and influential that it helped to shape pop-culture marketability of superficial queerness in film/TV. It does go hand-in-hand with "women can do imperial violence too" media like Zero Dark Thirty. It's not the only thing, but Top Gun is an example.

Finished The Tyrant Baru Cormorant, really liked it. I feel like each book in the trilogy made me like the previous ones more, even though they have their problems. Definitely shouldn't be a fourth, the story's at a good point to end and the sequel hook was a mistake. Overall, enjoyed the series!

An image of a shirtless Senator Armstrong, the villain of the videogame Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance. He has a speech bubble containing a Windows 11 Realtek notification that reads "You just plugged a device into the audio jack." Since many of Senator Armstrong's famous ingame lines end with the name Jack (e.g. "You can't hurt me, Jack!") the meme prompts the viewer to read it as "You just plugged a device into the audio, Jack!" in Armstrong's voice.

Help, I hear the notification in his voice!!!!

what a grindingly miserable book to read as a lesbian and feminist. i've got so many things i could read that are more interesting in their craft/execution that are not so awful in their themes and politics.

an entire book about how women are silly and immature for thinking she can do anything but accept the first offer of marriage she receives. a book where accepting this is character growth. the heterosexual bargain is the happy ending, so grow up and marry the neighbour who's a nonce.

in between work today i've reached the last stretch of The Tyrant Baru Cormorant (no spoilers pls), read another three chapters of Emma, and now I'm sitting down for more Imago and oh my god is Emma a disheartening slog compared to those two.

okay now i'm another few chapters in there's been less that's just "here is a chapter entirely of dialogue that only serves to tell you the opinions of the characters and not to distinguish their character beyond this, and they all sound the same" but the comphet is increasingly crushing and drab.

it's ironic that Emma blatantly has ADHD (e.g the long list of started-and-abandoned hobbies/arts/crafts) because my ADHD finds reading it interminable. also the book would be more interesting if she was lesbian or ace/aro tbh, the comphet hangs over it like a lead blanket.

that's why i'm using the word 'chatfic' specifically. it has the same weaknesses. it's all samey dialogue that uses so many words to say so little about the characters saying the words. "show don't tell" is an overused maximum but this is so heavy on the telling i feel disinterested.

i'm left without strong feelings about any of them and i'm a tenth of the way in already. most of the dialogue could be from any character. it's all "marriageablility, class", with no variation. reading a chapter is like swimming through honey. stodgy, samey, lethargic and weightless.

so often there's no sense of the conversation beyond words. no body language, no physical space, if you're lucky you get a line of "Emma thought". it leaves so much of the dialogue feeling samey and weightless and disembodied. i don't have a strong sense of the differences between characters.

halfway through chapter 5 of Emma by Jane Austen, something hit me that i can only describe in fanfic terms. Emma is a prototypical chatfic. entire chapters are just dialogue with barely anything else, barely even "said [name]". characters all talk about the same topics and all sound the same.

The gripping prologue!! The heart-wrenching start to Chapter One!! It's all so evocative!!

I find the modern toaster indispensable.

Thank you, I'm sure I will!

It's also very funny that I am simultaneously reading Jane Austen's Emma alongside this (which is a very strange contrast). I switch between reading a book about an Emma to a much more compelling book by an Emma!

if i had a penny every time a transfeminist who writes well-structured well-argued nonfiction/theory and is on the Cracked Ivory podcast was also a fiction author of one of my favourite works of lesbian fiction i've read in 2025 i'd have two pennies (i know Imago is going to be one of my faves btw)

i started reading Imago by @mzakharuk.bsky.social yesterday and omgggg it's so good! i'm one chapter in and so hooked, and i just thought "hey, Zakharuk is a familiar name", checked her bluesky, and realised that she's also Emma of dolphindiaries and Cracked Ivory?! waow (based based based) dot jpeg

oh absolutely, I am currently in the "pissed off and really enjoying it despite that" stage

Because the game's Epilogue with Hecate basically says with its whole chest "if a woman gets what she wants, she's wrong and she is cosmically punished for it". On top of that, the game requires Hecate to know what will happen and do nothing to prevent it at any point! It's a twist that ruins her.

She has much more agency in the patched ending than in the release version. Both its writing and visual presentation prioritises Melinoe at that moment, now. It's still "forgive the abusive grandad, he can be nice" but it's better supported now. Now, the way Hecate is treated is the worst, frankly.

Oh, sorry. This showed up in my notifications and I didn't realise it wasn't a response to one of my comments xP

I still love both games, despite my many frustrations with their writing in particular. The gameplay has me very hooked, and there's nothing else that matches it for that. Part of why I'm motivated to be so critical of it is because I enjoy it so much.

They do! Conflict and tension and character interactions having teeth makes them a lot more engaging. I think that's why people like Mel/Eris and Mel/Nem despite the game's problems. The game's execution of its romances leaves them lacking, imo.

Fair enough <3

Oh definitely. The character limit is really bugging me here xP It feels like the romance is in the game mostly because it was in Hades 1, so it's a series feature. It's all underdeveloped and disappointing, I just think that lesbophobia and comphet are insidiously present in the writing decisions.

The line writing and line delivery does sell it. I feel part of why there's a stronger sense of chemistry with Eris and Nem is because there's more tension and conflict. Moros and Icarus are comparatively uninteresting. But as much as I like the gameplay, I don't like how the game treats them.

You can turn him down in the sex scene, so Melinoe is not plot required to have sex with Moros. But she is required to romance him up to that point. Eris and Nem can be entirely avoided, the player can refuse to engage with them. They're treated like they don't matter in comparison. I hate that.