Empress of Mars: Undisputed @zebratron2084@awoo.space

@Austin_Dern To this day I remain VERY proud of just ​how many robotic/futuristic/shiny alts got mistaken for me on Tapestries. 😼

This woman should be able to make a fortune as a street performer in any city that's got legal weed.

https://gfycat.com/untriedlittleethiopianwolf

Today Peggy nearly killed me for a lousy round of mini-golf.

No, just kidding! I wanted to make a toot to contrast with my LRB and give the other side of the story.

Nah, honestly, the walk home _was_ grueling but we had a lot of fun! Turns out mini-golf is much less time-consuming when you're 44 and jaded and there are only two of you, instead of 12 and outright sullen and going with two stepsiblings and your parents—or gods help me, this really happened to me, an entire summer PE class.

@hystericempress Do please scriffle the Just And Incorruptible Canine Magistrate for me! <3 <3

@chandra Yeah, we found it pretty vindicating. :D

@Leucrotta Was it due to a miracle marketing strategy?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afCZQyhrn6U

(God, I love Peter S.'s Beatles parodies...)

OK, this generative art is genuinely gorgeous and I want to see a comic illustrated with this technique someday...

https://boingboing.net/2019/07/05/applying-ai-filters-to-an-1830.html

@Austin_Dern If Parallax ever gets a sequel/expansion, we'll have to arrange for the Mixolynes to invade a planet of these guys in grand Star Trek "Planet of Hats" fashion. :)

#PlanetFedora

@hummingrain I mean, to be fair, Joe Walsh did really like singing about dog doo. >_<

Let's just say that reading a bunch of "worst rock songs ever" lists in pursuit of a clear definition of Poo Rock was a... humbling experience. :>

I don't care. You'll pry my Spandau Ballet and Steely Dan out of my cold dead paws. This is a hill I'm willing to die on. 🐯​🎵​

@Sig Also, fair is fair: your measured response is a fine example of the exact _opposite_ of what I was griping about. It's made my day little brighter and my claws a little less extendy. <3

@Sig Yeah, I had no idea there'd been such a dogpile on them (if you'll pardon the expression). That's not only not a solution either, it's more of the same problem wearing a different-colored banner. >:3 I have zero trouble imagining this as a perfectly sensible kid who just bit the wrong tail by accident.

I've CERTAINLY been there, and I know what it's like to have the ONE GODDAMNED EXAMPLE among thousands turn out to be the unwarranted one. Just... you know... measure twice, cut once. It's the culture's fault for not encouraging that, not the kid's. I'm the first to admit it's fucking HARD to get any kind of reasoned discourse going when the other side's just as ready to leap on any kind of mistake... and then follow up with zero self-reflection.

Culture war's like any other war—it's so easy to shoot first and ask questions later under duress. You're still responsible for the casualties, and opening fire at full auto is rarely best practice... but the bastards who provoked the war are MORE culpable. :|

And the enemy sure as hell doesn't get to scorn you for the violation of the rules of battle... and then fire indiscriminately right back. It's hard to extend empathy when experience tells you you're not gonna get any back. >_<

The local cafe has apparently decided to end its multi-day run of fun New Wave and goth-pop I'm fond of, in favor of a two-hour marathon of Poo Rock.

I'm in enough trouble today, so I won't tread on anybody else's sensibilities by disclosing what I consider to be "Poo Rock." >:3 (And don't take me too seriously on this. Chumbawumba got dismissed as Poo Rock for "Tubthumping," and they're an anarchist collective that wrote a song about the Ursonate, FFS. Very few bands are Poo Rock when you dig past their hits.)

But let's just say it's not funky enough to be Crap Rock, not hard enough to be Butt Rock, not sensitive enough to be Wuss Rock, not lulling enough to be Office Rock, and not drunk enough to be Frat Rock, but still probably sold more copies by an order of magnitude than Television's "Marquee Moon"*. :p

Speculation is still welcomed. That way it won't be _my_ fault. O;)

* Sorry, I screwed up the other day: there are THREE perfect albums. ;D

@Sig I mean, to be fair, I did note that there were probably fair comments to be made about the gender tropes surrounding this. It's the tone of callout culture, the presumptuousness and lack of interest in the context going into it that I find... heh... problematic. I went out of my way to make it clear I didn't think the kid should be pelted with stones or anything. :) It really is a mistake the best of us make—and I'm not sure I'd indemnify the person who clapped them *back* about Hawaiian culture for their tone, either.

But the general habit itself is something I'll maintain deserves criticism—yes, including when I do it, so thank you for standing up to the tigress. :D It's good to know people will keep me honest and keep the discourse *going*, instead of coming in and trying to end it in their favor by fiat. That's what's really important to me. <3 <3 <3

https://i.redd.it/txcsmq57je831.jpg

Yeah, OP in the linked image is basically what I'm talking about when I tell someone "you're so woke, you're suffering insomniac psychosis."

You're not really being one of the "good guys*" unless you're constantly looking for nuance and context. There may have still been a useful discussion of gender tropes to be had about this scene, but this neener had to start with Their Great Cause and work backwards, steamrollering everything that got in the way, never bothering to seek a different explanation.

I've said it before: if you really think all it takes to be good is having the correct ideology, well, you're putting yourself at terrible risk of being bad—or at least, of suppressing something good, purely because it does not neatly fit your model of the world. In my experience, this does less damage to actual "evil" and more to punish things that are ambiguous or straddle two worlds.

I try to embrace the problematic. I may sniff at it, pick it up in my teeth and shake it, bat it around, even take a big old piss on it to show it who's boss, but I usually only try to maul it if it's about to really hurt someone...

But yeah. I don't _always_. THIS IS ALL A MISTAKE I HAVE MADE TOO. I'm not sitting in judgment over any individual, just discussing a habit that I see a lot and that keeps me awake at night. Even these "excessively woke" people are not evil—they're subject to the exact same protections I extend the "problematic." We're all layered and complicated people, and the best I can really do is mark the problem and hope people follow their own conscience.

Thank you for listening. By all means, stay woke. I still think "Our Team" has a far better angle on reality than the crappy nativists who are in charge right now. But as a feline, I can not possibly overemphasize the occasional utility of a good nap.

Sometimes you just gotta let some prey go, because there are more important... there are... huh. What was I talking about?

Meh. I'm sure it'll be fine. *snooze*

* for example, "guys" has imho effectively become gender neutral in this expression over the years and, while discussing the residue of androcentrism in it is still valuable, is a silly thing to nitpick individual uses of—and if it isn't, it should be, because it loses its clarity if you alter the wording in the pursuit of ideological purity (fite me 🐯​)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHCdS7O248g

And you get in your car
And you drive real far
And you drive all night
And then you see a light

And it comes right down
And lands on the ground
And out comes a cat from Mars

And you try to run
But she's got a gun
And she shoots you dead
And she eats your head

And then you're in
The cat from Mars
She goes out at night, eatin' cars
She eats Cadillacs, Lincolns too
Mercuries and Subarus

And she don't stop
She keep on eatin' cars
Then, when there's no more cars
She goes out at night
And eats up bars