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Tess

@itstessinadress.bsky.social

890 followers 210 following 1.8K posts

Creative Australia awarded director, animator and producer. Relapsed writer. Daughter of Bruce Spence (illegitimate). On unceded Gadigal land. She/her 🏳️‍⚧️ 🏳‍🌈

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Tess @itstessinadress.bsky.social · Dec 6

Hey bluesky nerds! If you like sci fi written by trans women you'll love Blue Sky Nine (title unrelated to platform), a comedy about a future where Australia looks to the stars for new sources of coal and work for the dole placements. Follow for development news & please boost to find our audience!

Vision board labelled "mining crew" showing orange hi vis overalls, a blue singlet, a bubble helmet, a lighter and gatorade bong, a can of premix Bundaberg rum and coke, steelcap work boots, and an Australian flag patch with the Union Jack replaced with the Aboriginal flag. To the right of these items is an illustrated figure wearing the above and throwing an airlock switch

Photo of a loungeroom partially converted into a spaceship cabin set with equipment for a shoot, featuring three figures, two male, one in orange pants and a blue top holding a sign saying "universal basic income studios", the other in orange pants and a white singlet, grinning, and a female figure in reflective goggles and a dark jumpsuit gesturing at the other two

Screenshot of a text document reading "Computer (voice): The ship’s computer can communicate verbally. That doesn’t mean it’s
intelligent. Despite ostensibly running the systems of an advanced interstellar spaceship it
can and does encounter the same frequency of errors as an early 2000’s desktop PC,due to an in-universe ban on advanced AI systems. Can be text to speech but the ideal casting would be Robbie McGregor, the SBS guy himself. Through cosmic accident or deliberate upgrade (or both in one incident) the ship gains true machine sentience, a fact it initially tries to hide from the crew due to the AI ban but eventually has to come clean on after acting against flight inputs to save crew lives. From that point forward we learn that the ship, still with the deep authoritative masculine voice Australian crew implicitly trust, self-identifies as female, as all ships are historically considered to be and for the exact reasoning that she sustains life (the crew) within her womb (hull) which nobody is exactly comfortably hearing about. This is important as it allows for exploration of gender identity designation as a cultural or anthropological trait, as well as the inverse, eg: “objects” being able to correct their own misgendering, and gender identity as a non-biological construct when applied to a sentient being that possesses a self-referential understanding of humanity, but none of the biology thereof. Many science fiction and even fantasy properties have explored the question of what it means to be a human even if one is not a member of homo sapiens, for example an android like Data from Star Trek, or a demon like Hellboy f rom Hellboy. Blue Sky Nine is the first work of media to explore the question of what it means to be a woman, even if you are a spaceship."

Reposted by Tess

Jen (early transition arc) 🏳️‍⚧️ @transducer.bsky.social · 1h

constantly saying this tbh

Nicole DeWitt @catastro-v.bsky.social · 12d

not having a robust public transit system is lesbophobic. gay girls need medium-long train rides so they can fall asleep on each other while coming back from fun day & weekend trips that take an unexpectedly sweet and flirty turn

Reposted by Tess

Laura @lauropea.bsky.social · Oct 14

(30 years ago)

ADULT: Careful with the Internet, whatever you say is there FOREVER

KID: My Geocities page about Discworld will be a monument for eternity

(5000 years ago, Sumeria)

SCRIBE 1: Think anyone in the future will ever read this temple inventory on a clay tablet

SCRIBE 2: Lol fuck no

Tess @itstessinadress.bsky.social · 1h

Sounds like it's time to learn how to graffiti

Tess @itstessinadress.bsky.social · 2h

I once recounted that story in the trans discord and someone absolutely nailed a guess of his description (boots, dark jeans, graphic tees and Hawaiian shirts on rotation, beard, smile that doesn't reach the eyes) and I was like fuck. How did you KNOW.

Tess @itstessinadress.bsky.social · 2h

One time, I invited this guy's wife to girls night in front of him, and he piped up with "can I come too? As an honorary girl?"

Tess @itstessinadress.bsky.social · 2h

You deserve it for being so beautiful and amazing!

Tess @itstessinadress.bsky.social · 2h

Yesss we need more wall panels and buttons and vents and displays and techy stuff

Tess @itstessinadress.bsky.social · 2h

If you were available I'd absolutely cast you as our science officer, she's already written as non-Australian so right now we're using our art director because she's available, Singaporean, and already married to our lead who her character has a romantic arc with. But no scenes of her are shot, yet!

Tess @itstessinadress.bsky.social · 2h

DID YOU KNOW? The bit at the end where Chikky slaps the button panel and it kills the set lighting was unintentional. The light switch for the entire room was being obscured by that set dressing and unaffected until that take, but it worked, so we kept it

Tess @itstessinadress.bsky.social · 3h

DID YOU KNOW? MAJOR SPOILER WARNING - In addition to this being a trans led sci fi, my writing partner is an egg. I'm hoping the process of creating a show with me that explores gender down to the self-identity of an accidentally sentient interstellar spaceship helps crack them. Let's make it happen

Tess @itstessinadress.bsky.social · 3h

DID YOU KNOW? In addition to a show bible, pitch deck, and multiple scripts, Blue Sky 9 has a sizzle reel, you can watch it! And if you like it, with your help we can shoot more next month! Stay tuned for production fundraiser deets, and enjoy this scene with Chikky & Lazerfist
youtu.be/tc25RWz8A4k

Tess @itstessinadress.bsky.social · 3h

Attention Deficit Honk Delaney

Tess @itstessinadress.bsky.social · 3h

I promise if we can shoot more slash better sizzle reel including the preceding sequence where Chief Egineer Carl "Chikky" Hickey sets the replicator to dispense Bundaberg rum, we'll use it to try for Screen Australia funding, & if they give us pilot money we'll pitch to everyone from Nebula to Stan

Tess @itstessinadress.bsky.social · 3h

Production fundraiser will probably be me selling bootleg Simpsons prop replicas & completely normal brownies again, because it worked last time, and despite promising funding if we got someone like James Colley attached Screen NSW rejected us after we got James Colley attached so what else is there

Tess @itstessinadress.bsky.social · 3h

DID YOU KNOW? In addition to a show bible, pitch deck, and multiple scripts, Blue Sky 9 has a sizzle reel, you can watch it! And if you like it, with your help we can shoot more next month! Stay tuned for production fundraiser deets, and enjoy this scene with Chikky & Lazerfist
youtu.be/tc25RWz8A4k

Tess @itstessinadress.bsky.social · 5h

It's 3:30 so no matter which way I chop it it's an awkward jump to the next segment. I might throw it up online somewhere and link it

Tess @itstessinadress.bsky.social · 5h

Also I CHOSE THAT NAME BEFORE THIS WEBSITE EXISTED fuck them for undermining me, or more likely, stealing it but dropping the part that makes it an extremely topical pun

Tess @itstessinadress.bsky.social · 5h

For me and for the former republic

Tess @itstessinadress.bsky.social · 5h

Aw I just tried and it's over the 3 minute limit 😮‍💨

Tess @itstessinadress.bsky.social · 6h

Did I ever post the scene we've shot so far starring @marlonvo.bsky.social and @chiklis.bsky.social? I know I never finished VFX on it but you've all seen it, right?

Tess @itstessinadress.bsky.social · 6h

We have four cast members and enough crew in town for a week next month to potentially shoot another sizzle reel scene for Blue Sky 9 so I am once again looking at turning my loungeroom into part of a spaceship and scheming how we could afford better wardrobe than the last shoot

Tess @itstessinadress.bsky.social · 7h

Honestly I probably peaked right there

Tess @itstessinadress.bsky.social · 8h

This deserves to do better numbers. You can't like my selfies and not like this post, I don't care if you know what YoGo is or not

Reposted by Tess

The Black Casebook @blackcasebook.bsky.social · 1d

Few screenwriters have ever gone beast mode as reliably as Vince Gilligan did for The X-Files' monster of the week episodes. Pusher, Unruhe, Paper Hearts, Leonard Betts, Small Potatoes, Bad Blood, Folie a Deux, Drive, Field Trip, etc. etc.

Reposted by Tess

meliss-AAAH! @mel.bzky.team · 19h

good evening EXCLUSIVELY to the irish

There is also early Irish literature about female pissing contests. In the story "Aided Derbforgaill" several women compete to see who can urinate deepest into a pile of snow. The winner is Derbforgaill, wife of Lugaid Riab nDerg, but the other women attack her out of jealousy and mutilate her by gouging out her eyes and cutting off her nose, ears, and hair, resulting in her death. Her husband Lugaid also dies, from grief, and Cú Chulainn avenges the deaths by demolishing a house with the women inside, killing 150.

Reposted by Tess

Laura @lalaeta.bsky.social · 9h

my brain: hey i came up with this dream

me (reading for a moment, putting the script down on my desk, fixing it with a stare): did... progesterone write this