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Naomi Alderman

@naomialderman.bsky.social

23K followers 790 following 9.1K posts

I write novels (eg The Power, new novel is The Future), I make games (eg Zombies, Run!), unorthodox Jew. not-getting-into-pointless-arguments-on-the-internet is an act of revolution. However complex you think things are, they're more complex than that

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Naomi Alderman @naomialderman.bsky.social · 42m

don't remind me of any of the words or tunes. some people are strong enough for this magic, but apparently I am not. 😂

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Naomi Alderman @naomialderman.bsky.social · 50m

I had earworm for five days after watching that film *once*.

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Naomi Alderman @naomialderman.bsky.social · 53m

I find it fascinating how quickly this totally novel kind of drug that you have to *inject into yourself* has been widely adopted without - I think - any conspiracy theories at all?

Naomi Alderman @naomialderman.bsky.social · 58m

are there any conspiracy theories about how GLP-1 inhibitors have microchips in them/are designed by the government to make us sick and control us?

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Reposted by Naomi Alderman

Matthieu 🦓 @augura.ca · 17h

J’avais oublié de flasher mes mûres cet été. J’en ai encore des pas mûres, mais sinon c’est une plante dur à aimer, les ronces sont un peu tannantes, mon plan a pas vraiment été mis au bon endroit!

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Naomi Alderman @naomialderman.bsky.social · 1d

Yes very good comparator

Naomi Alderman @naomialderman.bsky.social · 1d

once upon a time, many years ago, I took a scriptwriting class with the playwright Colin Teevan who had us watch Some Like It Hot along with reading the play The Bacchae.

3,000 years ago, people were indeed writing about men putting on women's clothes and finding a new self within them.

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Naomi Alderman @naomialderman.bsky.social · 1d

there is a lot of prurient 'yuck-farming' to many of these stories. I don't find it helpful for figuring out the ethics of it.

I think the ethics of it are *so complicated*. Everyone probably would have benefitted more from therapy than the law.

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Naomi Alderman @naomialderman.bsky.social · 1d

that feels like "you lied to me" as a crime. not because you lied and took my property. you lied to me privately and I did things with you privately that I would never have done if I'd known you were cheating. you lied to me about who you were. it feels TERRIBLE if it happens to you. is it criminal?

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Naomi Alderman @naomialderman.bsky.social · 1d

how far is "I didn't know the whole story, and I wouldn't have consented if I had known" the same as sexual assault?

I often think that adultery/cheating is probably the *most* painful horrific thing that isn't at all illegal. Although it has been illegal (maybe still is in some places?)

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Naomi Alderman @naomialderman.bsky.social · 1d

I haven't either. I also felt very conflicted about the case I linked to from a few years ago where a cis lesbian convinced another cis woman that she was really a man and had sex with her using a dildo, convincing her to be blindfolded the whole time. Calamity Jane boasted about doing this, btw.

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Naomi Alderman @naomialderman.bsky.social · 1d

do I need to learn to be less judgemental of someone's writing style/conversational ability? or is that itself a deep preference and deceiving me about this is a soul-deep deception?

the play Cyrano de Bergerac says: the one who writes the words is the real love, no matter the nose.

Naomi Alderman @naomialderman.bsky.social · 1d

if I had a great time with someone of a gender I wasn't expecting, maybe I learned something about myself?

but then... if I got drawn in by messages written by someone's ChatGPT, did I fall in love with pretty Christian or big-nosed Cyrano de Bergerac?

bsky.app/profile/youn...

Marie Le Conte @youngvulgarian.marieleconte.com · 1d

WELL THEN IT'S NOT MEANINGFUL IS IT, NICK www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle...

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Naomi Alderman @naomialderman.bsky.social · 1d

I do think these are massively complex questions, dealt with subtly and truthfully by great art. If someone convinces me he's rich to get me to fall in love with him... but actually we're perfect together, maybe I needed to let go of my interest in riches in order to be happy.

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Naomi Alderman @naomialderman.bsky.social · 1d

I mean it's a perfect movie. A movie about how much or how little of each of us is truly attached to a particular gender, and how much we can learn by letting our barriers down. The journey 'into the woods' (the magic place where things become fluid) is a journey toward ourselves.

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Naomi Alderman @naomialderman.bsky.social · 1d

(for Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon, the change of costume suddenly makes them a better partner and friend to women. they start to understand what women have to deal with. Jack Lemmon finds that he actively likes the female role, falls for a man. deception as transformation)

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Naomi Alderman @naomialderman.bsky.social · 1d

It's a film about deceptions and love, deceptions and survival, deceptions and friendship. A film about how much it matters, how much of the essential self remains the same despite deception, how much you maybe *need* deception to be seen as who you truly are. Genius to do this funny & charming.

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Naomi Alderman @naomialderman.bsky.social · 1d

this is precisely the question asked by Some Like It Hot. is it a deep instinct or more like finding out your partner isn't rich (Curtis/Monroe) a question of "nobody's perfect" (like Jack Lemmon/Joseph Evans Brown)?

I think for some people one way and some another.

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Naomi Alderman @naomialderman.bsky.social · 1d

British English often uses diminishers as intensifiers.
"I'm upset about that" = I am moderately upset
"I'm just a tiny little bit upset about that" = I am very upset

it's related to understatement, very English since Beowulf: poetryfoundation.org/education/gl...

Litotes

Poems, readings, poetry news and the entire 110-year archive of POETRY magazine.

poetryfoundation.org

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Naomi Alderman @naomialderman.bsky.social · 1d

yes, you would obviously know a great deal more than me but it does feel as if GRT is a group that one is encouraged as a British person to simply forget about. just don't notice GRT, don't think about them, don't have them in your mental map of the UK's people.

Naomi Alderman @naomialderman.bsky.social · 2d

would it be OK with you if we were to disagree? I find I do tend to disagree with everyone sometimes, even myself by the time I get to the end of a sentence.

(I am thinking about it, I do not immediately think it's right, but I also do not immediately know it was wrong.)

Naomi Alderman @naomialderman.bsky.social · 2d

I think that's the question, isn't it? Is this a joke about a normal thing that happens in love - people say what they want to get what they want? (Tony Curtis deceiving Marilyn Monroe pretending to be rich too.) Or is it a very serious sexual offence?

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Naomi Alderman @naomialderman.bsky.social · 2d

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

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Naomi Alderman @naomialderman.bsky.social · 2d

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

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Naomi Alderman @naomialderman.bsky.social · 2d

although to be fair I now remember that we made it illegal for cis women quite a while ago:

news.sky.com/story/woman-...

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