Evie's recent activity
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Comment on Looking for movies that combine religion mythology and supernatural elements in ~movies
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Comment on Timasomo 2025: Final Updates in ~creative.timasomo
Evie LinkI actually have no idea how to post in the showcase thread -- an incomplete first draft of a novel? Hard to really showcase. Especially since I'm not fully happy with anything I've written --...I actually have no idea how to post in the showcase thread -- an incomplete first draft of a novel? Hard to really showcase. Especially since I'm not fully happy with anything I've written -- y'know, first draft stuff. Maybe just lightly edit and post an excerpt from each week? Idk.
In terms of progress this week, I wrote, you guessed it, twelve thousand words, like I have every other week. The writing this week was uneventful -- well, actually, that's a lie. The ladies I live with bought a lot of spirits for hosting, so I was writing tipsy for a couple days there -- easier than writing sober, and therefore inadvisable. But also thoroughly unremarkable. I'll certainly hit 50k words by month's end, so, if this was NaNoWriMo, that would be the goal! Will I have made something? Well, maybe about forty percent of a draft of something. Eh. Whatever. I'm not doing this for your sake kfwyre
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Comment on Timasomo 2025: Week 3 Updates in ~creative.timasomo
Evie LinkWrote the usual 12k words this week. Nothing really exciting to report. I've been feeling pretty creatively congested and I hit a real block the other day, the first major one I've had on this...Wrote the usual 12k words this week. Nothing really exciting to report. I've been feeling pretty creatively congested and I hit a real block the other day, the first major one I've had on this project. Knowing what to write but not finding the words. Really struggling to write good descriptive prose. Lot of repetitive word choices and weak metaphors. I'm clinically, chronically depressed, so it is what it is. I'll clean it up in revisions.
I was blocked enough that I went back and spent a lot of time just doing boring line edits of earlier pages, and it restored my confidence that I in fact am not writing unreadable dogshit, and that low points are just part of the process.I will absolutely not be anywhere near finished with this fucking boondoggle by the end of the month, I've said it before and I'll say it again, but I think what I'll really have made by the time November rolls around is a good habit, a consistent pattern of writing even when I'm in those low points. So ultimately I'm pretty happy.
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Comment on Timasomo 2025: Week 2 Updates in ~creative.timasomo
Evie Link ParentVery kind of you to offer! For the most part my drafts are rough enough that feedback wouldn't benefit me at this stage -- the problems are too obvious! obvious enough that actual concerns I have...Very kind of you to offer! For the most part my drafts are rough enough that feedback wouldn't benefit me at this stage -- the problems are too obvious! obvious enough that actual concerns I have would probably get swept over. But I'll certainly keep the offer in mind, and in the meantime, I can share a one-chapter excerpt. Basically if you want to give feedback I'm mainly looking for thoughts on the clarity of the events described and your impression of the prose (especially re: the lengthy first-person section).
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Comment on Timasomo 2025: Week 2 Updates in ~creative.timasomo
Evie Link ParentI do want to expand a bit on some of the creative difficulties I'm having. Part of the challenge of writing a surrealist novel is that the whole thing has to be underpinned, in my mind, by a sort...I do want to expand a bit on some of the creative difficulties I'm having.
Part of the challenge of writing a surrealist novel is that the whole thing has to be underpinned, in my mind, by a sort of alien, free-associative logic. Things happen not necessarily because they make dramatic sense, or stem from the actions of the characters, or resonate thematically; they happen primarily because in some elemental way they must happen, and everything else is secondary (though still very important of course). Actually being in a psychological state where you can write this way well is hard, and I think staying in this headspace has left me a bit unpleasantly foggy in other areas. I described it in an unrelated comment as "poetry brained."
Like, so, my protagonist enters the city with her friend Mr. Baker, the Unreliable Diplomat. Later, Mr. Baker disappears and she associates herself with Oleander, a baker of delicious cookies. A walk she later takes with Oleander (the baker) therefore closely parallels a walk she took with Mr. Baker when the story began, and on this basis the protagonist starts to regain some of her key memories. I wrote this by accident, or maybe subconsciously, and I now understand it as a critically important plot beat (albeit one that so far only exists in subtext). Building a whole novel around such a weird tenuous chapter-spanning rhyme scheme is unbelievably challenging, which is probably why Juan Rulfo's 1955 masterpiece Pedro Paramo is like 200 pages long and it's madness and unreason to aim for like double or triple that length. But whatever. I'm making this for me, not for Juan Rulfo.
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Comment on Timasomo 2025: Week 2 Updates in ~creative.timasomo
Evie LinkAnother rather breezy week of writing here for me. Tipping my hand a bit: the story I'm writing is about a city made of dreams at the bottom of the sea, accessed by watching a show at a theatre...Another rather breezy week of writing here for me.
Tipping my hand a bit: the story I'm writing is about a city made of dreams at the bottom of the sea, accessed by watching a show at a theatre that floats unsupported in the Atlantic. Our protagonist is the girlfriend of the Foreign Secretary, sent into the city to track down the secretary's wife, ostensibly so the two can get divorced. But of course things don't go to plan and she's drawn into madness and intrigue blah blah blah
Anyway I think this is a very winning concept and it's been consistently fun to write. I was struggling a bit at the start of the week, just feeling a bit bored and directionless with the plot, but then I had a three hour nap and a dream that, waking, I interpreted as a metaphor for how to proceed with the story. I stumbled half asleep to my keyboard and immediately wrote four thousand words almost without blinking, and at the end of the day when I went to get my hot cocoa I had forgotten the dream entirely and I felt like a character from my story rather than its author. This is the strangest thing that's ever happened to me with any piece of fiction and I can't help but be extremely delighted.
So as you can see my pace this week has been more irregular than last week but I still wrote another twelve thousand words, which means I'm remaining on pace to write fifty thousand words by the end of the month, which seems like it will probably be 30-40% of the work overall. I wish I could go faster, but I guess I'm only a girl.
It's hard to overstate how much good this project has been doing for my mental health. Weird fugueish writing spurts aside of course. I'm taken back to a time when I was still a teen in college and desperately writing plays at four in the morning hoping it would be enough to save me from depression and dysphoria. Of course writing is just writing, it can't do everything, but I guess I had sort of forgotten what the process can do for me
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Comment on Queer temperature check: how is everyone doing right now? in ~lgbt
Evie Link ParentThis is more a question for my brother, as I'm an avowed (and I think obvious) dyke. But what he would say, because he shares my stupid fucking sense of humor, is that "passing" is a scam...This is more a question for my brother, as I'm an avowed (and I think obvious) dyke. But what he would say, because he shares my stupid fucking sense of humor, is that "passing" is a scam marketing tactic invented by Big Exclusion to sell more societal division. There will certainly be people who want to invalidate your queer identity based on aesthetics (many of them, other queer people). That sucks, but you and I, snake_case, we can do better than those people by remembering that appearances are an imperfect representation of the internal self. Maybe you will never be fully understood by other people at a glace, but as long as you and the people you love know better, you can be secure in who you are, and if people act like you don't belong because of aesthetics, then they were never going to be true comrades. And you can credit me when you write that into an episode of Bluey.
I mean, I know it's fucking trite, but I think it's important and even kind of radical to hammer it into your head that the aesthetics and the performative roles we adopt are instrumental, not terminal. That is to say, you adopt them to serve you, not vice-versa. The moment you start to try to be perceived a certain way, as an ultimate goal, is the moment you begin down the path to madness, because of course you can never control others' perceptions.
Idk. I'm not really a subject matter expert, I'm just trying to backport my own trans experience here so lmk if I'm way off the mark.
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Comment on Queer temperature check: how is everyone doing right now? in ~lgbt
Evie LinkI stopped reading all news two weeks ago and honestly I feel great. I mean, it's not like I've gone around telling the government I'm trans; I've got a passport; the women I live with are rich....I stopped reading all news two weeks ago and honestly I feel great. I mean, it's not like I've gone around telling the government I'm trans; I've got a passport; the women I live with are rich. Still feel a bit low-level anxious all the time, but y'know, life goes on and that's what the edibles are for.
My trans brother is getting married to his trans wife this week! (S/o to straight t4t) I'm really happy for them but it does hurt a little because most of our family isn't attending the wedding for "moral" reasons, and he's pretty bummed. I wrote him a toast and a card and I'm worried that they're a little purple because I've been poetry brained all month. Pray I don't make a fool of myself I guess. -
Comment on Tildes Minecraft: What do you want to see in the next season? in ~games
Evie LinkOh hell yeah we're so back I have no strong opinions about new data packs or mods; I thought the last server's list was pretty good. I'm leery about Incendium just because of the effect it has on...Oh hell yeah we're so back
I have no strong opinions about new data packs or mods; I thought the last server's list was pretty good. I'm leery about Incendium just because of the effect it has on certain types of nether roof farms, but if that's what the people want who am I to gainsay them.
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Comment on I am angry at Google and wanted to share (rant) in ~tech
Evie LinkOh my God thank you so much I've been trying to figure out how to turn off those stupid notifications for forever. My Gmail consistently hallucinates that deliveries that happened last week are...Oh my God thank you so much I've been trying to figure out how to turn off those stupid notifications for forever. My Gmail consistently hallucinates that deliveries that happened last week are happening today, for some reason, and it's worse than useless!
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Comment on Timasomo 2025: Week 1 Updates in ~creative.timasomo
Evie LinkSo! I've been drafting a surrealist fantasy novel, and things are going pretty well, I'd say. First of all, just writing this thing, and when I'm not writing about it thinking about it, has been...So! I've been drafting a surrealist fantasy novel, and things are going pretty well, I'd say. First of all, just writing this thing, and when I'm not writing about it thinking about it, has been really good for keeping my mind off the state of the world, and for not falling into doomerism, so I'm happy about that.
When it comes to the actual drafting, I've been going at a good clip. I've written 12k words in one week, which, going by NaNoWriMo rules, is more than enough to hit the required 50k words in a month that that challenge requires. The problem is, I'm realizing that that pace is still probably too slow. This novel is fucking sprawling, there's so much that happens in it. I had speculated last week that it might be a novella; in actual fact, my first draft of this thing could get as high as 100-150k words, or at least that's what I'm estimating, and I'm actually a fairly economical writer, so that's fairly lean for the story being told. Guh. That said, I've been having so much fun writing this thing I might be able to pick up the pace for the next couple weeks.
Okay, so the biggest problem is that I have no idea whether this story is any good. As a surrealist novel, I really want to conjure up a poetic, dreamlike quality. I've recently been inspired by a lot of the Latin American magical realism stuff, like think 100 Years of Solitude or Pedro Paramo, and I think a lot of the success of that style relies on the cumulative effect of the finished product. Like, I've written some scenes where I was like, "Oh yeah, that's a great fucking scene," and some where I'm like, "this'll definitely need a few more passes in revisions," but as a whole I have no sense about whether this thing is working or cohering at all.
I'm a bit worried that I may be doing too much. So far, in the first 3 chapters, 12k words, I have a switch from past tense to present tense, a switch from third person limited narration to first person and then back, a switch from prose to script format and back, a poem and like zero conventional scene transitions, since I'm trying to just have the whole thing melt and flow together in a disorienting and organic way. This is why I'm enjoying writing this so much, the setting and premise mean I get to do some really fun and subversive stuff, but it's also possibly bad to read. We'll see when the second draft comes around, I suppose.
This is unironically the first time since my last creative writing class in college that I've written longform prose that isn't smut. I keep almost stumbling into writing dubiously consensual lesbian sex scenes, which sounds absurd, yes, but I think of sex scenes in the type of smut I write like songs in a musical: entertaining, yes, but also a great way to escalate drama or release tension. It's kind of stupid that I'm having to re-teach myself how to write scenes between two people without sexual overtones, but whatever. I can be normal for one story.
If anyone wants to read an excerpt of what I've got so far I can post it here as well!
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Comment on Timasomo 2025: Roll Call in ~creative.timasomo
Evie LinkI have had a kind of surrealist fantasy novel (or maybe novella) slowly amalgamating in my head for the last year or so, just a half dozen incomplete ideas cohering into something enormously...I have had a kind of surrealist fantasy novel (or maybe novella) slowly amalgamating in my head for the last year or so, just a half dozen incomplete ideas cohering into something enormously intimidating that I haven't dared to start in on. This month, I think I'll try to draft it.
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Comment on What game is your personal "Silksong"? in ~games
Evie LinkWell, apart from Silksong itself, I'd have to say Alan Wake II. My first Remedy game was Quantum Break -- arguably their worst game; a decently well written time travel story and a passable...Well, apart from Silksong itself, I'd have to say Alan Wake II.
My first Remedy game was Quantum Break -- arguably their worst game; a decently well written time travel story and a passable powers-based third person shooter, clumsily stapled to an embarrassingly bad TV series. But even there, the studio's lofty ambitions, their exciting ideas -- both narratively and metatextually -- shone through. After that I played Alan Wake, then Control -- both great games; both notably flawed games (especially Alan Wake, which was dated on release back in 2010). But through each game there was a clear throughline of increasing ambition and increasing polish. They were getting closer and closer to creating a masterpiece with each subsequent game, and I was so excited when AW2 was first teased at one of the Geoff Keighlythons because I thought 'this could be it, this could be the one where they finally put everything together and deliver an all-time great game.'
And, yes, that's exactly what happened. In my opinion, Alan Wake II has a credible case for "best game ever made." The gameplay is just "good enough." It does just enough to stay fresh and fun throughout the runtime, and has strong fundamentals. But the story, my God. Not only is it as conceptually ambitious as Quantum Break, as well directed as Control. It is also incredibly well written and performed on a scene level, getting me deeply invested in the characters like no Remedy game has done before. The mirrored narrative structure reflecting its two protagonists and their journeys is exquisitely done. The game borrows from the cinematic language without sacrificing the strengths of the games medium. It has an absolutely killer soundtrack. It is extremely tense and scary and therefore, eventually, cathartic. There's simply nothing else like it in the medium. And the central theme of the game -- that such a work of art can only be achieved through a diversity of voices, through collaboration -- resonates with me deeply, and casts a reflective light on the studio's history.
AW2 is so good that it has ruined a lot of survival horror games for me since then, because in terms of writing, direction, ambition and cohesion, really nothing else that I've found comes close.
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Comment on Is Tildes protected from malicious actors, aka paid trolls, aka bots? in ~tildes
Evie Link ParentI got it! Personally I was hoping to reply all day with rigorous evidence about the rough texture of sharks, but in our metaphorical comedy duo here on Tildes we have an apparent abundance of...I got it! Personally I was hoping to reply all day with rigorous evidence about the rough texture of sharks, but in our metaphorical comedy duo here on Tildes we have an apparent abundance of straight men and a deficit of funny men. Ah well
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Comment on Is Tildes protected from malicious actors, aka paid trolls, aka bots? in ~tildes
Evie Link ParentWhat? No they're not. Sharks are extremely rough, like sandpaper. If you see a shark, DO NOT LICK IT. It is not a smooth and pleasant and oddly flavorful experience; it will abrade your tongue....What? No they're not. Sharks are extremely rough, like sandpaper.
If you see a shark, DO NOT LICK IT. It is not a smooth and pleasant and oddly flavorful experience; it will abrade your tongue. All the experts and the government agree on this.
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Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
Evie (edited )LinkI'm in the hidden Act 3 of Silksong, with my completion progress ~85%. The game is really, really, really good, perhaps my favourite "hard" game I've ever played, but it took like 30 hours to...I'm in the hidden Act 3 of Silksong, with my completion progress ~85%. The game is really, really, really good, perhaps my favourite "hard" game I've ever played, but it took like 30 hours to click for me.
I think the thing with all of my favourite hard games is that I kind of play them, oddly enough, to relax. Lies of P, Elden Ring, Remnant, the original Hollow Knight, Returnal, once I got a feel for those games, I could kind of just steamroll them while paying only half attention and listening to an audiobook. Like, sure, bosses took multiple attempts, but I didn't really have to lock in or fully focus. I literally first beat the Radiance from Hollow Knight during an attendance-mandatory history lecture.
Silksong is not like that. I think the best way to put it is that the game is not substantially more difficult than the above games, but it is much more taxing. Because bosses, enemies, and Hornet herself all have really complex movesets, and you die in way fewer hits than the first game, you basically have to be fully locked in the whole time. It can be really tiring to play, and my worst experiences with the game were a couple sessions where I was just playing tired. During the mist section, and against the big Bilewater boss, and in the room where you enter Hunter's March. But when you're able to lock in, fully focus up, and get into that flowstate, this game feels better than anything I've ever played. Since winning requires utilizing all the tools you have available, and since you die so quickly, the game forces a level of mastery and fluidity I have never experienced in another game. Every time I finish a tough platforming challenge, I feel like a speedrunner. Every time I beat a boss, I feel like a challenge-run player. It's honestly incredible. Easily my game of the year so far.
It's worth mentioning that the game's exploration is amazing. For Silksong players, Act I spoilers: I got to the Citadel, and rolled credits the first time, without ever even seeing the Blasted Wastes or the Last Judge. I thought the way I got to the city -- through Bilewater, the Exhaust Organ, and the Mist, was the main intended path, and when I explored the Citadel the whole time I was wondering how to get through that big gate that locked the city shut from the outside world. There are so many alternate routes, paths, and connections in the world, with so much to explore and discover, that it's truly mind-boggling.
Between Silksong sessions, I also played the demo for UNBEATABLE, a narrative rhythm game slated for release in a month. I'm not usually a rhythm game fan -- I bounced hard off of Hi-Fi Rush, for example -- but this was really fun, and, notably, really well-written, using some neat tricks to really make its (unvoiced) dialogue flow naturally. The dialogue feels musical in a way that few games I've played achieve, and I'm actually looking forward to the game, to see more of the story, and to play more of the goofy rhythm-based minigames that were in the demo. Really recommend giving it a try if you haven't.
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Comment on The woman who wrote "Eat, Pray, Love" tried to kill her girlfriend and wrote a book about it in ~books
Evie Link ParentOne of my partners has described me as "terminally art brained;" you'll have to forgive me. I sometimes forget how much of this stuff normal people know. Paolo Uccello was a Florentine Renaissance...- Exemplary
One of my partners has described me as "terminally art brained;" you'll have to forgive me. I sometimes forget how much of this stuff normal people know.
Paolo Uccello was a Florentine Renaissance artist. He was fixated on proper perspective in his works, and creating a sense of depth. I'm not a fan of his works really, but he was certainly an innovator.
A 'cassone' was a kind of chest that you'd put at the foot of your bed. They were highly ornamental and were typically given as wedding gifts from the bride's parents. Many, like the one described here, featured elaborate paintings depicting themes of love, marriage and gender.
'Ferrety' is an adjective meaning "like a ferret." I usually use it as "'weaselly', but without the negative connotations." But you can apply whatever thoughts you have about ferrets to the person this word describes.
A "trans woman," also known as a transgender or a doll, is an eclectic and controversial subtype of woman. They're not often seen in public, due to their skittishness. When you do encounter one, it's sometimes possible to approach without scaring her off, but this takes subtlety and skill.
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Comment on The woman who wrote "Eat, Pray, Love" tried to kill her girlfriend and wrote a book about it in ~books
Evie LinkI'm subscribed to Siobhan Brier Aguilar on Patreon, where she posts whatever articles she's wanting to talk or write about in advance, and ever since she posted the one this video is based on a...I'm subscribed to Siobhan Brier Aguilar on Patreon, where she posts whatever articles she's wanting to talk or write about in advance, and ever since she posted the one this video is based on a couple weeks back, I haven't been able to stop thinking about it, or telling random people about it. I was at the art museum a week ago and I, bizarrely, found myself in front of an Ucello cassone with a ferrety trans woman I had just met, telling her "hey, did you know that Elizabeth Gilbert, the author of Eat, Pray, Love, tried to murder her terminally ill affair partner?" It was bad of me, I know, but this just reads like a headline from an alternate universe.
Anyway this video isn't Aguilar's usual style; she usually approaches controversial/viral articles with an excess of empathy and a really clear authorial voice, whereas this is more a "news/drama" video explaining perhaps the strangest story of 2025. But you gotta hear about this man.
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The woman who wrote "Eat, Pray, Love" tried to kill her girlfriend and wrote a book about it
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Comment on Some thoughts on violence in ~society
Evie LinkReally great piece. Is it embarrassing to admit that, despite having played two Just Cause games, I didn't get the pun/double meaning of the title until now? Anyway there's a lot that could be...Really great piece. Is it embarrassing to admit that, despite having played two Just Cause games, I didn't get the pun/double meaning of the title until now?
Anyway there's a lot that could be said about video games where the main (often, only) verb available to the player is violence, is shooting or slashing or whatever. The narrow way it forces you to engage with the world, and reduce characters into either "allies who would kill for you" or "enemies to be killed." Anyway that's not what the essay is about, really. The videogame stuff is more a lead in to talk about political realities.
The author talks a lot about left-wing violence, and of course it's important to note that the right is currently much more violent and much more powerful in the world. But he's right, and I've often observed leftists who seem to possess a genuine bloodlust beneath their high-minded ideals. You sometimes see it from the "eat the rich" crowd, some of whom I have heard unironically quote the murderer from Disco Elysium: "the rich are not human." This sort of dehumanization is something I wish the article had touched on, as it's also very common in games.
Not to get controversial, but I sometimes hear similar sentiments from certain pro-Palestine people given to defending Hamas and the October 7 attacks. They'll say, "Israel and the West have conducted an indefensible, century-long violent colonial project on the people of Palestine" ( unambiguously true). "And when living under this violent colonial regime, naturally, people become radicalized and want to fight back to protect their families or communities" (true). "Therefore, the actions of Hamas are justified."
Maybe it's me, but I've never been able to follow that argument to its conclusion. I think possibly I simply don't believe that murder, violence and terrorism can ever be justified, whereas even a lot of left wing people implicitly believe that if you do enough evil, inflict enough colonialism, you can forfeit your humanity, and anything done to you, no matter how pointless, gratuitous or cruel, can safely be justified.
I could keep rambling on, but the upshot is that this post is really well-written and gave me some thinking to do this morning. Much appreciated :)
It's one I felt morally obligated to pirate because it's a Depp+Polanski joint, blehh, but The Ninth Gate fits OP's ask perfectly. I also think it's actually way better than people give it credit for because of the huge twist that is just left almost entirely in subtext, which makes the whole affair rather impressive on rewatch.