Empress of Mars: Undisputed @zebratron2084@awoo.space

@Phorm Is... is this a prank call? You don't need me, sister. I've been watching them for 44 years—you could basically hit 'em with a feather at this point. They've got a massive flaw in their cognitive systems that makes them incredibly prone to self-destruction over totally imaginary threats. AND they have nuclear weapons.

Now, if you want a proposal, the real future is in finding a useful purpose for them. I've got this little group of test subjects I've been priming with memes about hive consciousness, industrial-scale reprogramming, and even self-rubberization so they'll wipe clean. We could have one in every galactic household. But I've already given away far too much for free. Let's talk.

good morning

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oB-Z83jNjOQ

this dog got a donut

why can't tigers have a donut

please give generously 🐯​

@Austin_Dern On the other hand, I got really few opportunities to play out the OTHER end of my personality. I love horror, especially cosmic and psychological horror, and I have some DARK fantasies. I rarely shared them with anybody, since most of my friends just aren't into that stuff and I was always terrified of turning them off. But some part of me would love an excuse to be somebody's full-fledged apocalyptic nightmare in a playspace that's explicitly OK for it.

@Austin_Dern The two extremes. The unicorn doesn't get much time anymore, and neither does the monster.

It's been a long time since I've been emotionally intimate with a fellow sentimentalist. Peggy is a perfect specimen of dragon: kind, wise, serene, and witty. She's also spiky, and I have to maintain a certain amount of spikiness in order to get along with her. It actually works really well for me, since I tend towards spiky, but I don't get to let my guard down and be sentimental much...

"Fraggle Goth"

@001zlnv Philip K. Dick's Ubik.

@Leucrotta Single favorite is hard, but I'll always have a soft spot for Stevie and Zoya. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vo19qujXbnE

I've never been a space buff. I've always felt like we should fix our problems here first, and prove we can be anything other than parasitic to a habitable world.

I've always been amused by the Stanley Kubrick moon landing conspiracy theory, though. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_landing_conspiracy_theories#Alleged_Stanley_Kubrick_involvement

This whole story, too:

https://slate.com/technology/2016/09/urban-legend-about-a-venus-probe-lost-due-to-unit-conversion-error.html

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-oct-01-mn-17288-story.html

Also, look up "12-571-3570".

@001zlnv Absolutely. Not even an issue. I can't think of a single non-virtual, non-online, non-textual time in my life that I've WANTED to stand out in a crowd. If huge numbers of people looked as artificial as me and we were distinguishable only by serial number, yeah, that would be pretty much optimal.

@Phorm Alien abduction all the way. Maybe noctural/somnabulistic attraction by some kind of psi-beacon out in the woods, just sort of get dreamily autopiloted out to some blinking podlet that invites me to step into its hatch.

@kelseyhusky For 1, how about we stick with Saturday morning and/or syndicated cartoons? If you need further limitations, let's say 1980-2000?

@Aradia Real alien monolith. Covered in glyphs. Totally asemic, no answers. Give civilization something magical to guess about for millennia.

You know, I'm a little ahead on work and got some time to kill. I haven't done #TMITuesday in a while. Ask me some questions. Weird ones.

@kelseyhusky

1) Favorite anthropomorphic media character?

2) Favorite regional food?

3) Favorite Wikipedia article?

4) Favorite magical system? (gaming, fiction, or otherwise)

5) Favorite typeface?

#TheseAreNotCoolKidQuestions

@Aradia Good afternoon, Miz S!

Now you've all got me kicking around my Mad, interdimensionally-infundibulated raccoon Jenna James Kirschbär's backstory.

They're at least second-gen Mad, so I figure it's sort of a family business. So now I'm thinking of them as right at the midpoint between the Murrys from Wrinkle In Time, the Richards from Fantastic Four, and the Gerhardts from Fargo S2.

I think I'm gonna crib admiringly from @Balina's "art of Balinology" for this. Like Balina $LASTNAME, there's a Kirschbär clan in every dimension—except for the ones they've been deliberately rooted out and expelled from.

They usually have their roots in some kind of aristocratic bench-chemist tradition, making the leap to industrialists somewhere along the way. They have a habit of losing their fortunes by backing the wrong side of a revolution or two, usually after some general or chancellor fails to properly appreciate the refinement of their inventions.

JJ theirselves is generally a pure academic and hedonist with no real interest in the power-dealing side of family affairs. They go to school because they're expected to, TF a few friends and enemies because they can, and invariably their attempts to "find themselves" after graduation involve some confrontation with a Big Mystic Other. One after another, they get caught snooping being the curtains and get split into metaphysical fragments for their trouble.

As noted in previous posts here, Kirsch is friendly and helpful on the micro scale and cheerfully amoral on the macro scale. They're not joiners and will only help an organization from the sidelines. They'll work with anybody until they catch them hurting somebody they like, and can go from trusted fixer to crazy-obsessed saboteur with the flip of a switch. Once they decide they don't like you, they're relentless.

They tend to come in designer colors. Red is the default, and a family genetic quirk. They are VERY fussy about not being mistaken red pandas. You can always tell a post-splinter Kirsch and the severity of the split by the palette swaps. If you see them in cyan or mustard, give them a very wide berth. They are not long for this world and will probably take someone with them.

@Leucrotta Right? I actually remember it being funny and well-written, but... I mean... I was like 15 ffs. None of the other shows I liked from them have exactly aged well. I used to love the ALF cartoon, which I'm pretty sure was by largely the same crew, and I just couldn't go back to it. Too much 80s guy hero "HAHA I"M RADICAL" stuff that just reads as kinda... Poochie-adjacent these days.

New Slay the Spire character is finally out. I won't spoil it, but I really enjoy the fact that the most dangerous things you can arm her with, damage-wise, are a pen nib and a mantra. I might need to get some fan art of her killing a boss monster with her superior calligraphy.

If I played the Raggedy Ann and Andy drinking game* with this one minute of footage, I would die of alcohol poisoning.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzZ6AzM7qNk (cw: not actually sexy in any way shape or form)

*Rules of game:

1. If you see one of your kinks portrayed—whether you enjoy the portrayal or not, whether you find it sexy or not—drink.

"Oh look. Your lips have bangs."

Submitted without further commentary besides the obvious: Dad Loves You.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24f0OwnZE-Q [SFW; confusing]

I made the mistake of telling my mom Peg and I were getting hitched sometime soon, mostly so we have our bureaucratic and health stuff in order.

Long story short, she outed Peg to my stepdad. :D

It's :D because he gave not one single negative fuck. We'd been kinda keeping my gender and sexuality stuff on the down-low for years because he's a bit conservative, more to give the poor old ailing fella one less thing to worry about than any real speck of potential hatred in his heart.

He said exactly what my mom said when I came out to her, apparently: "I just want you to be happy." I'm so proud of them right now.

See? Ohio ain't so bad.