mel valentine
@meli-writes.bsky.social
organiser w/ iwgb. philosopher whore. not cool. inexporable fool. & trans writer of kinky, existentialist lesbian erotica. prompts @make-up-a-criminal.bsky.social stories, zines & other socials: https://linktr.ee/meli.writes
much as the murder of Brianna Ghey mysteriously stopped being about the climate of transphobia in the UK and became about teen access to social media, the death of Jason Arday is, equally mysteriously, no longer about racism and is becoming about free speech in academia
If you do union casework even for a little bit, you learn very quickly that laws do not stop people in power from doing illegal things. The only way to limit the worst of what they are willing to do is to build up enough worker power that they fear it more than they want to do illegal stuff.
it was only a few years ago that allies widely acknowledged that 'biological sex' was a dogwhistle from anti-trans people. it was a _slur._ and now it's legal language so it's okay to use.
Nicole DeWitt@catastro-v.bsky.social · 3w agoif news outlets were really interested in fact-based reporting theyd refuse to use the term “biological sex” and every time it appears in a quote theyd note actual biologists consider the term meaningless and anti-trans attempts to write it into law as fundamentally anti-science
if you are any kind of creative or artist or writer you *have* to understand sex workers and porn/erotica artists/authors as being members of the same class as us. to the extent society recognizes a difference between "legitimate" art and porn, it's only as a tenuous, convenient, temporary fiction.
watching cis people repeatedly fail to find a way to counter the conservatives' emphasis on sex and thus watch them hopelessly struggle as conservatives bring back extremely invasive "sex testing" and defund or destroy women's organizations and social spaces is so. wow lol
I'm done promoing all the comics that feature in this bundle, but there's still a few days left to pick it up! A crazy good bargain for a huge range of genres and stories.
⚠️ eve g ⚠️@evegwood.com · 2mo agoThe Scottish Comics itch Bundle is now LIVE! Get 30 indie comics from a small selection of the talented creators who call Scotland home, all for only $20! All profits split between the creators, with 13% of proceeds going to PCRF to help provide urgent aid in Gaza. 🩵 BUY: itch.io/b/3727/scott...
To explain for foreigners: our energy regulator rubber-stamps price rises; the water regulator tuts while rivers fill up with human shit; the press regulator wags an occasional finger, and the national equality body enforces press campaigns against groups of people they hate and wish to damage.
flyingrodent@flyingrodent.bsky.social · 4w agoBritain, where the national equality body is a boobyhatch jam-packed with wingnut cranks who fervently believe their job is creating weapons for police to hammer minorities that the press hates and wants to harm.
P/R/M Chapter 5: Waders is out! Edel works to clean a summer estate for a royal family that hasn't visited years. But when war threatens the capital, a princess is sent out to stay, and a whole new host of problems are foisted onto Edel. Chief among which is the rebel who wants the princess's head.
archiveofourown.org
that must be what those 'fallen houses' are, the ones all the sexy depressed knights keep coming from
Dana Nightingale 🏳️⚧️@danaenight.northsky.social · 11mo agoLanded gentry implies the existence of crashed gentry
Related to "mistaking Sartha as fundamentally important to war against the Empire is buying into a fascist bullshit Great Man Wunderwaffe theory of warfare"; I expounded a frequent idea of mine re: "um mechs aren't even practical"— oh look it's right on the preview card
vermin
The mech is the ideal fascist battlefield hero: an unreasoning terror weapon that walks like a man.
brain-implant.tech
noticeboard for the lil things i've been picking up <3
Wrote one of them there Jam Manifestos about tabletop games itch.io/jam/ttrpg-ma... in the spirit of manifestos I tried to write it in the heat of a moment and not overthink things, so it's probably underthought but isn't that half the fun?
A Marestail Manifesto by After Icarus for The Second TTRPG Manifesto Jam
Some thoughts on a plant that grows where it will
itch.io
look it me (and my baby)
⚠️ eve g ⚠️@evegwood.com · last mo.Today's spotlight for the Scottish Comics itch Bundle is SCAREDY CAT by Cat Gordon! Scaredy Cat is a 32-page comic about self-doubt, queer identity/acceptance, and learning to love and live out loud! 🩵 Get 30 Scottish indie comics for $20 at itch.io/b/3727/scott...
it's so awesome how trans women warned about and predicted much of what would happen years in advance and the collective response by much of the "community" was and still is isolating them or scolding them for their tone. nobody ever learns anything they just jump to save their own backs
They/Thempress@theythem.press · last mo.isabel fall was right, btw: “And the moment [queer activists’] work reached a usable stage—the moment society was ready to accept plastic gender, and scientists were ready to manipulate it—the military found a new resource…the military can make gender tactical.”
Aaa, I really enjoyed this! Very sharp, every moment infused with that distinct otherworldly unease I always love in Else's work.
Else@else.social · 2mo agoplease enjoy "A Common Flaw" maybeelse.site/words/a-comm...
the recent big examples of transfeminine/transmisogynised rep makes it really obvious which queer people internalised the idea that it's _harmful_ to someone to be a trans woman. that it's _worse._
please enjoy "A Common Flaw" maybeelse.site/words/a-comm...
A Common Flaw
Edith is a connoisseur of the flesh. She was trained for it, first voluntarily and then not, but it has always enraptured her—she would not be suitable for her work otherwise. Once it was her first lo...
maybeelse.site
Else@else.social · 2mo agoThe most recent story I've been working on is a corporate transhumanist future where the concept of transsexuality has been wholly exterminated, as seen from the point of view of a former serial killer employed as a surgeon. It's extremely messy conceptually, but I think I'm pulling it off :3
Over 30 people got fired from ZA/UM because Zero Parades didn't sell well but CEO Ilmar Kompus didn't step down. President Ed Tomaszewski didn't take a paycut. Is Head of Studio Allen Murray leaving or losing out on a bonus at all? Head of Finance Lira Jolkina? Head of Operations Patrick Norberg?
my sincere hope (& what i do my little bit to help with) is that the games industry that comes out of this is unionised to hell-and-back. i'm tired of people paying to make an industry that gives them so little back.
The great thing about Britain is you're free to think whatever you want to think and say whatever J. K. Rowling's lawyers permit you to say.
i got the greenlight to make a contact list w/ 100s of entries and spent 6 hours non-stop doing it and accidentally gave myself heat exhaustion 💀
mel valentine@meli-writes.bsky.social · 4mo agoi've been part of a new community org for a day and someone is already talking to me about their spreadsheets i could fix gimme gimme
Dressed up to the Eyes by @spectrewrites.bsky.social archiveofourown.org/works/833960... Bloopy's thread: bsky.app/profile/bloo...
Bloopy@bloopybloopz.bsky.social · 2mo agoHi, making a 🧵 about the #ErohorrorJelly2026 I was recently a part of! It was a fun experience and it's been cool talking more with other writers in the space. I'll be going through each of the other stories and giving thoughts! Read the whole collection here: archiveofourown.org/collections/...
My monthly wrap up posts, along with other reviews that I write, can now be found at this cool little website (wrens-mechsplo-review.forestry.md/june-2026/), so you don't have to follow me to tumblr for a nice readable version any more! That aside, here is my wrap up for the month of June!
