Empress of Mars: Undisputed @zebratron2084@awoo.space

@anthracite The one in Interplay's Neuromancer was no great shakes mechanically, but I still remember crying when I had to kill the one who just wanted to play a nice game of chess because I couldn't find the right software...

@001zlnv My condolences, hun.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZeciX-3wfs (cw: industrial music, implicit cookie)

I survive Barry, I survive a multistate Greyhound, I survive a week of the flu, I spend all day on delayed flights... only to die at the hands of a deranged (and really sweet) old Italian lady with a new air fryer.

The sauerkraut balls are actually real good, though. It's an Ohio thing.

@LexYeen@snouts.online @Goronic@snouts.online "You're a spooky bunny, Max." "Tee-hee!"

I can not FUCKING WAIT until an American sitcom makes a joke about the "raiding Area 51" meme, therefore bringing it to its official and merciful end.

@Phorm @JulieSqveakaroo *Fry "take my money" meme*

@hummingrain Teach the little scamp to breathe fire maybe while we await the revolution? (And pet 'em for me.) It's been working pretty well with Peggy. <3

@Phorm @JulieSqveakaroo

┏┓
┃┃╱╲ in
┃╱╱╲╲ this
╱╱╭╮╲╲house
▔▏┗┛▕▔ we
╱▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔╲
welcome all homestar references
╱╱┏┳┓╭╮┏┳┓ ╲╲
▔▏┗┻┛┃┃┗┻┛▕▔

#NoLoafing

@packbat You too, huh? I just saw an entire café damn near jump to their feet at once at a thunder strike...

@kelseyhusky *scribbles notes furiously* "Don't... use... lasers... Messy." Thank you. We'll get back to you on that. For our friend.

*dashes off*

@kelseyhusky How would huskybots open a can of food?

Asking for a friend. Martians totally know how to do that already because we are very advanced. >_>;;

@JulieSqveakaroo Dammit, Julie, I thought my optimism today was unassailable...

...but now you've made me realize how bleak and empty my life is without a Stereolab cover of "Feed The Childrens." ;___;

Anyhow, for now, the Empress is [OUT]. Y'all Terrans try not to fuck up anything else too bad for Earth tigers while I'm gone, K? We're gonna need those guys here in the future to, like, exist and stuff. Everything else is just academic for me honestly.

Her Majesty is wearied by this talk of your primitive planet's affairs, and shall take her rest now. Be good, Earthlings.

@Balinares (ideologically, OTOH... sigh... yeah, I'll admit sometimes it does feel like somebody stuffed the whole Know-Nothing Party into a glacier in 1860, and some idiot released them into the 21st century like a gang of angry thawed cavemen >___<

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Know_Nothing )

@Balinares Also, on further reflection—and focusing on USpol here, because it's the closest at hand... we still have the ACA and gay marriage last I checked. So, hun, with all due respect? Never mind the 19th century. In terms of the law, they haven't even particularly succeeded in rolling us back before TWENTY-FOURTEEN. :p

@Leucrotta @wolfteeth oh god, i'm begging you, PLEASE don't let my girlfriend see this thread ;D

It reminds me of one of my favorite sketches from the Canadian comedy troupe, The Frantics.

It's a stereotypically Canadian parody of the classic American musical: small-town girl decides she's gonna make it big in Hollywood, so she tells all her friends and neighbors, they're gonna decorate her family barn, and build a stage, and put on a big show, and people will come from all around and see how much they have to offer.

And her male friend just responds to, "I doubt it. S'just a BARN." He responds to EVERYTHING she says— her hopes, her dreams, her surprisingly practical plans—with "I doubt it. S'just a BARN."

And nobody supports her. Everybody's determined it'll never work. So she puts on that whole show by herself. And it's a huge hit. It becomes the talk of Canada, then America. Hollywood agents scout out their little town and whisk her away to stardom.

And the sketch ends with three old men reading headlines about how she's due to star in a blockbuster movie. And one of them clicks his tongue and says, "That's typical. Once they make it big, they forget all about the people who supported them."

So, yeah, I hear you. The queer leftist movement is just a goddamn barn. None of this will ever, ever work. We've never changed the world one iota, we never will, things are worse now than they've ever been, and the bad guys have already won.

Now shut the fuck up, you adorable magical overeducated creatures, and help me put up some fucking tinsel. >_<

And before any of you nitpicks the lines about "the world will give you anything, as long as you will want to," Ms. Sadier is NOT singing about some kind of simplistic wishful thinking or being pollyanna-ish here.

Like I said earlier this week, I've been reading a book on Trump and Dark Magick—how his strategy relies on simply refashioning reality to his desires. I feel that's what this song is addressing, the true root of the only real kind of Magick, the ability to mold consensus reality to your own desires by making those desires firm and unyielding.

No, the world won't just dump victory and justice on us if we want it really hard. But if all we do is vaguely want it, and yet paradoxically NEVER act like it's something we can—or preferably, WILL, regardless of what material reality or our enemies' gaslighting say—actually achieve... the world will give us approximately jack and shit.

In the immortal words of Mr. and Mrs. Flanders, "We tried nothin', man, and we're all outta ideas!" Stop goddamn talking down every opportunity we have and forfeiting matches we haven't even played yet.

(Actually, come to think of it, the full Stereolab discography and my personal political beliefs still only differ in aggregate by... maybe a percent? Two percent? I totally dig their approach to exuberant human-centric Marxism, though I do have some issues with their doctrines about "ba da ba dee doo be doo.")