Evie's recent activity

  1. Comment on Tildes “orphans”, what do you do for Christmas? in ~life

    Evie
    Link
    So I'm queer and don't have a relationship with my family. I live with a lady whose birthday is near Christmas and another who's a witch who observes the solstice so I try to plan out a combined...

    So I'm queer and don't have a relationship with my family. I live with a lady whose birthday is near Christmas and another who's a witch who observes the solstice so I try to plan out a combined celebration. There's not usually gift giving but we try to invite friends over, I make a nice big holiday meal with sides and desserts and stuff; we grow our own little pine tree and bring it indoors for the holidays; we drink (mead) and burn some incense. And as a Lutheran I always go to the Christmas Eve service at my church. So we have our own little traditions that are really fun -- Part of being an adult is realizing that if you want to have celebrations and traditions you have to be the one doing the work to uphold them, like the boring ass scheduling and inviting and meal planning and budgeting work. For me at least it's worth it

    17 votes

  2. Comment on Summer Eternal presents: Red Rooster, an incendiary RPG in ~games

    Evie
    Link Parent
    IDK, from what I've read, in this one you've been wrongfully convicted of a crime you were a victim of, and you're allowed out on parole wearing an ankle monitor only on the condition that you...

    IDK, from what I've read, in this one you've been wrongfully convicted of a crime you were a victim of, and you're allowed out on parole wearing an ankle monitor only on the condition that you help solve the serial arson cases working for the fire department. That's not really criminal justice fetishism in my book -- maybe the opposite -- and it feels like a great setup for a mystery story too. I mean, a mystery does need someone to investigate it and the character having some kind of connection to the government is useful when you want to explore political themes and critique the government. Not that you're wrong for being over it! But hearing about the game's setup and premises today really got me interested because it does feel like a novel, interesting angle

    11 votes

  3. Comment on The imperial dilemma of Civilization V in ~games

    Evie
    Link Parent
    Yeah I watched them while playing Elden Ring. I'm saying it's a conflation

    Yeah I watched them while playing Elden Ring. I'm saying it's a conflation

    2 votes

  4. Comment on The imperial dilemma of Civilization V in ~games

    Evie
    Link
    I remember, I watched this guy's videos back at the same time I played Shadows of the Erdtree, and now I can't think about Elden Ring without thinking of his excellent postcolonial analysis (which...

    I remember, I watched this guy's videos back at the same time I played Shadows of the Erdtree, and now I can't think about Elden Ring without thinking of his excellent postcolonial analysis (which captivated me to the point I was struggling to navigate, much less fight, at many points). He's the reason I can't go two sentences without saying "procedural rhetoric" nowadays. Really really excellent stuff, I recommend everyone watch it

    4 votes

  5. Comment on What single episode of a show would you recommend as a standalone? in ~tv

    Evie
    Link Parent
    For me the quintessential Doctor Who episode, the one I always show people to get them into it, is Mummy on the Orient Express. Such a perfect encapsulation of what the show can be

    For me the quintessential Doctor Who episode, the one I always show people to get them into it, is Mummy on the Orient Express. Such a perfect encapsulation of what the show can be

    8 votes

  6. Comment on Why do we find Tildes (and Lobsters) more interesting than the alternatives? in ~tech

    Evie
    Link Parent
    I've talked to some of them (kinda have one foot out the door myself) and a lot of them are in smaller communities on Discord, that kind of thing. I also think generally I know a lot of people...

    I've talked to some of them (kinda have one foot out the door myself) and a lot of them are in smaller communities on Discord, that kind of thing. I also think generally I know a lot of people (myself included) who are just online a lot less in general, because they're burned out from all the unkindness

    4 votes

  7. Comment on Keeping (longer) hair in place without it being stiff? in ~life.men

    Evie
    Link Parent
    Mousse + OSIS mattifying powder worked wonders for my 2A hair in terms of giving it, idk, structure and ideological continuity. Don't even have to apply it more than twice a week really

    Mousse + OSIS mattifying powder worked wonders for my 2A hair in terms of giving it, idk, structure and ideological continuity. Don't even have to apply it more than twice a week really

    2 votes

  8. Comment on "What do we do with Jacob Geller?" (Self admitted sexual assault, removed from Nebula streaming) in ~tech

    Evie
    (edited )
    Link Parent
    I didn't touch on it but it is slightly frightening to me how some people (usually men) online will immediately hear the words sexual assault and jump in as quickly as possible to equivocate, to...

    I didn't touch on it but it is slightly frightening to me how some people (usually men) online will immediately hear the words sexual assault and jump in as quickly as possible to equivocate, to empathize with the perpetrator, to argue that even the most loathsome of victimizers deserve another chance, to (oh by the way just incidentally) bring up entirely unrelated false accusations. Even in a case where the act in question, and the insufficiency of the punishment at the time, isn't under dispute. I don't usually see this defensiveness with other crimes online (usually the opposite) although maybe my perspective is biased.

    There's this huge mismatch between how women see this issue and men see it I think. For women, it's like, half of your friends have been harassed or assaulted (at least!), there's virtually no hope of help from the system, of justice for the perpetrator much less a crumb of prevention. So you feel powerless, like "fuck, it could happen to me (again) at any time and I'd still have to go to work, do the dishes, put moisturizer and a smile on my face like nothing fucking happened the next day," it's nightmarishly mundane. I start to accept it as the price of existing in society and it just becomes white noise.

    And then for men it's like, none of that exists. Most of them seem almost totally blind to it, like they only hear about the stuff that makes the news (I wonder why false accusations are so often made newsworthy). They don't have to worry about it, I guess. It's not a personal issue for most of them. And they don't have a sense of the ubiquity of the problem.

    18 votes

  9. Comment on What are you reading these days? in ~books

    Evie
    Link Parent
    When I reread the book I'll do it in audio format but I think I would struggle with it for a first read. I often found myself several pages into a chapter before realizing,"wait, fuck, I...

    When I reread the book I'll do it in audio format but I think I would struggle with it for a first read. I often found myself several pages into a chapter before realizing,"wait, fuck, I understood none of that, let me start over," like losing to a boss battle. Was constantly pausing to look things up and think things over. That said I mean the audiobook narrators sound great and I'm sure it's a good experience; the book is kind of dreamy and hypnotic and hard to hold onto no matter how you read it, I assume.

  10. Comment on "What do we do with Jacob Geller?" (Self admitted sexual assault, removed from Nebula streaming) in ~tech

    Evie
    (edited )
    Link
    I find the way a lot of people are talking about this story somewhat unsettling (this includes @Barney 's top comment). I am/was a huge fan of Geller's work. I've watched every video of his for,...
    • Exemplary

    I find the way a lot of people are talking about this story somewhat unsettling (this includes @Barney 's top comment).

    I am/was a huge fan of Geller's work. I've watched every video of his for, what, five years? His perspective has more than any other single creator shaped the way I view games and other forms of art, but it's not just that he makes really good videos. He's used his platform to do charity work that I really respect, raising tens of thousands of dollars for women's health, or to support trans people, or for legal aid for victims of ICE.

    Whatever he did (confessed to doing) a decade ago, in my opinion he has paid whatever social debt he incurred in full. He is almost certainly not the same person now that he was then. I would certainly not advocate for further punishment, if I was even carcerally minded to begin with. Fuck, if there was no one else safe nearby, I would probably trust him to watch my drink. I will still never watch another one of his videos.

    I preordered this guy's book, my (pseudo)name is in the back in the 'backers' section. Looking at it on my shelf after the news broke I felt sick. I have experienced sexual assault myself from someone I trusted and this wasn't that, of course, but those same feelings still came dripping back in miniature. Because I respected this guy; at least, I respected his work, his perspective. And now, anytime I think of him, it will be associated with that feeling.

    When a lot of people say, "holding someone accountable even decades after it happened is very hypocritical," I think they're coming from a good place, a 'people can grow and change and should be allowed forgiveness' place. But I still often hear it as a, 'your reaction is wrong' place, a 'why would you stop watching his videos nothing about them has actually changed' place. Let me spell it out: People reacting to stories like this, in the privacy of their own heads (even, sometimes, in a professional capacity), is not an extension of cancel culture, or carceral logic, or Christian morality. It is normal to be shocked, hurt, and betrayed when you discover that a person you respected and looked up to was by his own admission capable of that kind of immense harm. Especially in our culture of sexual violence; especially when you're a survivor yourself. The offense may be long past, but the information is new.

    And maybe you'll say, "well, fine, Evie, no one's saying you have to watch his videos, I totally get where you're coming from. But what about him being dropped by the MinnMax podcast? What about the professional consequences he's facing, the collaborators who are disavowing him? Isn't that a little much?"

    I'll take the MinnMax example here. MinnMax is a small gaming network (I donate to their Patreon every month, I started watching them years ago to see more Jacob Geller), a place about "games, friends, and getting better." It's an outlet of like, what, about a dozen people? With several very prominent female hosts, with a popular weekly show, "Pew Pew Bang" about games for women and women's experiences with games? This Geller controversy is probably the most online attention the cohort has ever gotten, because their close colleague (alleged friend) hid this past offense from them, effectively ensuring them maximum damage when it became public. Not only is it the rational thing to cut Geller from a business perspective, just to avoid backlash, I think it's a very normal reaction for the people on the MinnMax team to have. The offense may be old, but who am I to say that Kelsey Lewin, or Janet Garcia, or Sarah Podzorski, or Ben Hanson, or Leo Vader, shouldn't feel betrayed right now, should be just fine working with this guy professional consequences or no?

    I know I sure as hell wouldn't be able to watch the part 2 of the Control Resonant deepest dive featuring Hanson, Vader, and Haley Maclean if it came out featuring Geller as was planned.

    I think men tend to have a much easier time than women saying "digital judgment is almost always extremely overbearing" and "refusing to accept growth is unconducive to a progressive and supportive society" after a guy ADMITS to committing sexual assault (says himself that his punishment was nowhere near enough). To some extent, you know, the people saying it aren't even wrong, not all the time, not in the abstract anyway. But it still feels extremely invalidating. Because, they can step back, and they can show that they think logically about the situation, and sure enough they have an impressively high minded view. But in our rape culture, women like me don't get to step back to begin with.

    And I'm not saying, "therefore, harassment is justified; therefore, Geller should never work again." At least in my communities where I'm discussing this, I haven't seen anyone saying that (I don't use Twitter, Bluesky). People I've talked to are just, for the most part, feeling hurt. I accept that Geller has grown, and respect him for it. I will continue to feel hurt.

    72 votes

  11. Comment on What are you reading these days? in ~books

    Evie
    Link
    I read China Mieville's new novel The Rouse. It's an extraordinary book; extraordinarily large, dense, and difficult. It's a real genre-bender, dancing between social realism, horror, supernatural...

    I read China Mieville's new novel The Rouse. It's an extraordinary book; extraordinarily large, dense, and difficult. It's a real genre-bender, dancing between social realism, horror, supernatural mystery, military memoir, spy thriller; its subversions of the novel's form, its use of poetry, undifferentiated dialogue, and a kind of breaking, failing language do extraordinary things for mood and tone and theme. As an exploration of late 20th century British culture and colonialism it's nuanced and toothy; as a character study it's layered and deeply affecting. It's certainly the most singular novel I've read since, say, House of Leaves; also the most difficult, since at least The Man Without Qualities. Really really excellent, then, but probably not for every reader. It's only been a week since I read it and I'm already salivating to start again.

    3 votes

  12. Comment on What are you reading these days? in ~books

    Evie
    Link Parent
    I just read all three of these novels a couple weeks ago as well -- kind of as research, since I'm writing my own fantasy cosmic horror mystery right now. Very few of the stylistic choices in the...

    I just read all three of these novels a couple weeks ago as well -- kind of as research, since I'm writing my own fantasy cosmic horror mystery right now. Very few of the stylistic choices in the series were really to my taste at all, so it's a huge testament to Robert Jackson Bennett's skill that I still found the series super enjoyable and page-turning. They're very well constructed novels with good worldbuilding and imagery; that said, only the second novel even approaches being what I would call a "fair" mystery which is increasingly important to me I suppose.

    1 vote

  13. Comment on Announcing the eighth annual Tildes' Make Something Month (Timasomo)! in ~tildes

    Evie
    Link
    Please add me to the list, just in case :)

    Please add me to the list, just in case :)

    1 vote

  14. Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games

    Evie
    Link Parent
    I rolled credits on Resonant yesterday and for me (and the people I've been playing it with fwiw) generally agree that it's much better than the first one. Combat is actually a high point for me...

    I rolled credits on Resonant yesterday and for me (and the people I've been playing it with fwiw) generally agree that it's much better than the first one. Combat is actually a high point for me because while yes, most of the bosses suck (in terms of gameplay; they all have excellent direction), it's a really fun, dynamic and strategic system in group fights, which is the majority of the game's content. And Dylan being an actual character (unlike Jesse who was, frankly, paper thin) gave the story a lot more weight at least for me. That said, though, I felt the open world was really uneven in quality and exploring often felt tedious and draining. The game also has like ten excellent set pieces so it never felt like a chore to play the story at least. I mean, Alan Wake 2 is my single favorite game and this isn't to that level at all but it's still great and, I think, Remedy's best gameplay by a lot.

    4 votes

  15. Comment on Online visual art communities without AI? in ~creative

    Evie
    Link Parent
    Glad to see dadaism making a comeback in the big 26

    Glad to see dadaism making a comeback in the big 26

    4 votes

  16. Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games

    Evie
    Link
    Over the past month or so, I played and finished the infamous, and infamously dense, Japanese visual novel Umineko: When Seagulls Cry. It's too early to call, but this might be one of my favourite...

    Over the past month or so, I played and finished the infamous, and infamously dense, Japanese visual novel Umineko: When Seagulls Cry. It's too early to call, but this might be one of my favourite stories I've ever experienced; it is also very very difficult to recommend.

    Part of that is the Outer Wilds effect. I read Umineko with no spoilers, knowing nothing about its premise except that it was a very long, very interesting mystery story, and that its themes were somewhat similar to Wake Up Dead Man, the third Knives Out movie (this is the recommendation that finally got me to pick it up). This description occludes enough of the game's premise to be essentially wrong, but I wouldn't have had it any other way: a huge part of the joy of the game is not only the twists and turns of its central mystery, but the way its premise explodes and unravels over its monstrous runtime, until by the end, the story is barely recognizable. Thus to talk about Umineko's themes, its story, and its ideas is, to some extent, to deprive a future reader of the joy of experiencing all the wild twists and turns for themselves. I will talk a little bit about those things below, but before then, allow me to give the best, most spoiler-free recommendation of this story that I can.

    Umineko is a visual novel that is absolutely full of tropey otaku bullshit. Our main perspective character, multiple times in the very first chapter, attempts to grope his teenage cousin and their family maid; this is played for a joke both times; that's some of the least of the gross stuff that happens in this novel. It's also terribly paced, and the prose and dialogue are often embarrassingly clunky. However it also features some of the best character writing I've ever seen: depictions of trauma, abuse, neurodivergence, and gendered violence that were so realistic, so grounded, and so well handled, that I spent cumulatively several hours of this story crying so hard it made my chest hurt. If the pacing is awful, every scene is nonetheless absolutely essential; more than any story I've read, author Ryukushi07 seemed to read my mind as I theorized about the game's many puzzles and questions, so that the protagonists and I were incredibly in sync, and he often came to realizations, or came up with theories, at nearly the exact moment I did. Finally the game's exploration of its fascinating themes — themes which it would be a spoiler to even list out — is so comprehensive and complete that I doubt I will be able to get anything new out of the many, many works of art that attempt to tread similar ground going forward. If you can stomach the weebery (which does, ultimately, all have a point), and if you're used to reading stories with very little player interaction (like, you know, books) and if you're a fan of the mystery genre, Umineko is, in my opinion, an absolute must-read. Even if it takes you 100+ hours. I would just recommend looking up mods for the game, so that you can use better sprites and get the QoL features that aren't available in the Steam version.

    Umineko Spoilers

    In all honesty, this thing is still sinking in, and I don't really have a good handle on my thoughts on it yet. Might not, until I do a second read-through, or maybe watch someone else play it. Some scattered thoughts, though:

    I was absolutely shocked that the writer had the balls to, in a visual novel released in the 2000s, make the main female character, who has multiple romantic relationships with other cast members, a trans woman, and to only reveal this fact 7/8ths of the way into the novel, and to make her experience with her gender, her identity, and even her reproductive trauma, so essential the story. But Sayo isn't alone among the female cast in being an extraordinarily well-written character with tons of hidden depth: in fact all the women are portrayed with similar care, are all both terribly broken and totally sympathetic. While it does have some problems on that front (some of which probably stem from the game's refusal to moralize at any point) Umineko might be the most feminist story I've ever read; certainly it's the most feminist story I've read to be written by a man. The relationships between Ange and Eva, and between Rosa and Maria, reminded me of my own childhood, and my own relationships with my family, in the best and worst ways. This level of depth is achieved by replaying the murder mystery over and over, of course, and focusing on different characters each time; it wouldn't be possible in a traditional mystery film or novel — still, that every character (except a couple of the men: Krauss, Ghoda, George) is so well developed, and so essential both narratively and thematically, is an astonishing feat.

    I really loved all the metaficitional elements of the story, and the way that, much like the base fiction layer, these elements challenged the player to decide whether they were really magical or were simply metaphors for some more grounded, authorial truth. The seemingly half-dozen layers of narrative frames reminded me of House of Leaves — in terms of how difficult it was at certain points to keep track of everything — but really their function is more Brechtian; almost explicitly so, as there are multiple scenes in a theatre, and a witch of theatregoing, who invite other characters to observe the events of the story and consider not just what's happening but what it represents.

    I didn't really like any of the magical battles until chs. 6 and 7; those later chapters I felt were paced much better, and the magical battles were easier to interpret as extensions of the world's rules, whereas the fights in the first half of the story tended to really drag and often were much harder to parse. Now that I know the logic of how the battles work, I wonder whether my opinion on this would change on reread.

    I also didn't like the bits in chapter 5 where the game's writer Ryukushi essentially turned to camera and said, "hey! here are the rules of this world! here's how to interpret certain scenes! trust me, I do have a plan, this isn't random bullshit, it's all solvable." I was already operating under the assumption that it was, Ryukushi, and I trusted you and your storytelling, so when you told me "you have to love and trust the author and not stop thinking or else the story won't mean anything," it just felt condescending and desperate, especially since chapter 5 was in my experience, the worst chapter in the game, and it used the rules in an inconsistent and confusing way (to be fair there was a justification for it, but the novel almost filtered me here. No amount of "well but it was supposed to be a confusing and jarring experience" will suddenly make me switch over to enjoying it, especially when the pacing is how it is).

    In general there's a lot, including the solutions to many of the game's locked room mysteries, that's left ambiguous. I like this from a thematic perspective, but not from a plot perspective; I'd have liked to have the solutions for at least eps. 1-4 laid out in a more clear way, though I understand why Ryukushi chose not to (for what its worth, I respect this decision a lot less considering he flip-flopped and explained everything in the manga adaptation). Still, it's weird how a lot of the really fantastic character and thematic work here is subtextual, but then dialogues scenes will have their subtext aggressively over-explained, as with the comical scene in chapter 1 where it's repeated several times in narration that "THEREFORE, MORE THAN ANYTHING ELSE, [X CHARACTER] NEEDED A LOT OF MONEY, RIGHT NOW" after that information had already been conveyed through some very elegant and engaging dialogue. In some respects this story definitely needs to trust the reader more; I understand that it was originally released serially, and so a lot of the scenes of being obvious were probably built as explicit responses to the Japanese 2channers trying to "solve" the game as it came out.

    Overall, Umineko is one of those experiences that has instantly rendered all of my WIP drafts worthless, because of the huge impact it's had on the way I think about writing in genereal and some of the themes I aim to explore in specific. Plus, the music, is, like, some of the best I've ever heard in a game. God. I'm still kind of in a recovery period, writing this now having finished the VN over a day ago, just not really capable of thinking about much of anything, reading or playing much of anything. What an experience. I suspect that this past month of my life will, from here on out, be "the Umineko month."

    As a palette cleanser, I chased with the indie game Unpacking, which is a classic cozy game about emptying boxes and organizing your room as you move from your childhood home, to your college dorm, to your first apartment and so on. It's a pleasant, short experience, without any real challenge, which is just what I need right about now. I think what I'd heard about the game in the past is that it's about breaking up with your shitty boyfriend, which frankly kinda scared me off of it, but actually it's more about growing up, and it turns out to be more of a queer game in the end, which was a pleasant surprise. And, to be honest, this kind of cleaning and organizing stuff is very relaxing to me in real life. I kind of like these games that invent fictional chores for you to do because I don't always have enough chores in my real life — especially since for the past couple weeks most of the ladies I live with have been away on various trips.

    5 votes

  17. Comment on Tildes Minecraft Weekly - Final Thread for Season 3 in ~games

    Evie
    Link Parent
    Thanks for looking around and for the nice words! I really enjoyed my tour earlier this week too :)

    Thanks for looking around and for the nice words! I really enjoyed my tour earlier this week too :)

    3 votes

  18. Comment on What are we in a golden age of? in ~talk

    Evie
    Link Parent
    I had the same opinion as you, and my interaction with WH40K is still quite limited, but having played Rogue Trader earlier this year, it did in fact change my thoughts about the setting. I think...

    I had the same opinion as you, and my interaction with WH40K is still quite limited, but having played Rogue Trader earlier this year, it did in fact change my thoughts about the setting. I think the thing you don't get from just hearing the annoying powerscaling-ass community from the outside is just how absurd, campy, and dare I say queer the 40K universe is. Often it functions as a sendup of bureaucracy, religion and militarism that is genuinely delightful because of how comically, unbelievably dark it is. The bleakness of the setting is actually so great that it loops back around to being silly and almost weightless -- at least in Rogue Trader anyway; I can't say whether all 40K media is so self-aware.

    7 votes

  19. Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games

    Evie
    Link Parent
    I've been wanting to try out FoM now that it's in 1.0, since I hear that the character writing is genuinely great, but I've never played Stardew Valley or Harvest Moon or any of those types of...

    I've been wanting to try out FoM now that it's in 1.0, since I hear that the character writing is genuinely great, but I've never played Stardew Valley or Harvest Moon or any of those types of games. Would Mistria be approachable for someone new to the genre, do you think? I only ever hear long-time farming sim fans talking about it

    3 votes

  20. Comment on Control Resonant has gone gold. Physical release date for the game has been moved to October 15th. in ~games

    Evie
    Link Parent
    The last two Remedy games can be described as having "good enough" combat (in Control's case, phenomenal in gamefeel but lacking in depth) to carry you through an otherworldly experience that...

    The last two Remedy games can be described as having "good enough" combat (in Control's case, phenomenal in gamefeel but lacking in depth) to carry you through an otherworldly experience that emphasizes writing, atmosphere, art direction and an utterly unique multimedia presentational style, over gameplay. FWIW though I played Control twice on M+K and though I rebound a couple inputs for comfort I found it very easy. Third person shooters are usually comfortable on both types of input.

    10 votes