☽ ♱ ava pauline ♱ ☽

On the account of “Privacy Index” Ava Emilone produced “Hannah Einbinder was right: The Surveillance-Dissociation Complex,” a video essay exploring how surveillance and media culture lead to dissociation, and its effect on social harmony and self-understanding. Stream via link in bio. @ordinaryavaa

just in time for lesbian visibility week! poetry blogs, polyamory, and loving my girlfriend very much for “queer love project,” a very lovely, very tender substack publication by @jerryportwood 🐸🤍 honored to have my story about gay melodrama and tumblr poems among such funny, talented queer writers! thanks to my ipad for its photo-tracing abilities and @profsue123 for the feedback on the earlier drafts of this essay!

uber excited to go to oregon this summer for the @mccormack_writing_center workshop, formerly known as @tin_house 😻⭐️ i’ll be working on my very first novel manuscript with some of the queer, trans, and POC novelists i most admire, including torrey peters, who wrote one of my favorite books ever!! it’ll also be my first time in the pnw—new trees and mountains to see 🌲 🏔️ thank you to the folks at @mccormack_writing_center for believing in my budding story

ava carrying shit: notebook, go tell it to the mountain by james baldwin, wallet, lip gloss Ebony Tomatoes Collective is a literary and arts magazine for personal and political liberation by a Black queer collective. The collective was founded by Ava Emilione, who uses her dual education in economics and the arts to make the collective as self-sustaining as possible. For this issue, we had a discussion with Ava about the intricacies of starting a collective from the ground up as a marginalized person, with and for other marginalized people, without adopting the practices of your oppressors. to read our full interview with ava, order a copy of issue 8 at the link in bio! and to stay up-to-date on ebony tomatoes collective, follow them on instagram or subscribe to their substack of the same name.

my two cents about gay sex, hockey shows, and bette porter for @salonofficial 💞 thank you @profsue123 and @wolfievibes for believing in this story and @bittnia for challenging me to think deeper about lesbian TV and what it all means!

how to support Black trans artists for @nationmag ❣️thank you to all the incredible drag performers who took the time out to speak with me for this (who are tagged), make sure to go to your local drag shows (with Black artists!!), tip your performers, and to donate to @klondyke_drag ’s ongoing fundraiser

boys of summer

the mountains are getting nippy, so i’m reliving summer and fall through the gems in my camera roll 😌

turning 24 with the best friends a semi-hardened prefrontal cortex could ever ask for ❤️ delicious perfect surprise cake courtesy of @sweetstudiosnyc

There is a lesbian inside of you who wants to save the world…In this video, I discuss the work of Audre Lorde, Leslie Feinberg, and Prentis Hemphill to explore how lesbian identity is an important blueprint for healing trauma and manifesting a brighter future for all people. editing/camera by @bee.york.sten <3

thank you @penamerica for such a blessed opportunity ⭐️💓 receiving the time and resources to work on my short stories truly turned my year around, and i’m so honored to work with such an incredible cohort of storytellers as well! at the same time, it doesn’t feel honest to post this success without being real about the plentitude of “unfortunately” and “we regret to inform you” emails i’ve received this year. being rejected—often and casually—is an unavoidable part of being a writer. but in a sea of no’s, sometimes you hear a yes. any fellow artists working to gain visibility and financial support in these trying times, you’re very far from alone. keep going, keep advocating for your success, and keep working to get our voices heard :)

Anyone who has spent even 5 minutes with me knows I have a lot to say about the state of the world. Founding @ebonytomatoescollective and sustaining my own writing practice has shown me the power of collective art-making, imagination, and dialogue on the godforsaken Internet. So, Instead of howling at the moon with my late-stage capitalist woes, I’m doing what any burnt out writer with a film degree would do—making video essays on Youtube. My new channel is called “The Birdcage with Ava Emilione,” because 1) I love birds, 2) living in 2025 feels a lot like living behind holographic bars, and 3) Maya Angelou’s “I know why the caged bird sings” was one of the first books that inspired me to start using my voice and speaking my mind. I’ll be posting regular videos about all the cultural and political movements that rustle my feathers—from a Black, queer, Marxist, and feminist lens. Tomorrow, I’ll be posting my very first video, where I discuss Ethel Cain’s recent controversy and the true origins of Americana. As someone who is too long winded for TikTok and terrified of IG reels, I’ve shied away from making videos for a while. But after going on my friend @bittnia ’s incredible podcast (which y’all should all be subscribed to), I started to respect Youtube as a platform that’s relatively welcoming to long-form, intentional content that promotes actual dialogue. And since imagination and conversation can forge the keys to our liberation, I wanted to offer my voice and knowledge to the cause. Join me! You definitely won’t regret subscribing to The Birdcage through the link in my bio—unless, of course, you secretly want to tar and feather indie creators making exhaustive cultural criticism :’). Special shoutout to my beloved @bee.york.sten for not only taking these photos, but for filming and editing the Birdcage’s first video!! #scoutmestew