Empress of Mars: Undisputed @zebratron2084@awoo.space

I swear to god anybody I see getting militant over the difference between "transwomen" and "trans women" is getting the boot, immediately. Getting uptight over the supposed semiotic content of a space is just a bridge too far for me. You can ask for it. You can explain why it's important. You can even debate it with me. But if you flatly insist, I'm gonna insist right back, and I'll be pointing at the door, because I don't think that's a cultural authority you have—or need.

And yes, this is really a thing. And I have friends who are eagerly retweeting it. And they're already digging in and trying to tar anybody who gets it wrong as a transphobe.

And I just won't. I'm so fucking tired of armchair activists trying to dictate usage like this. It's so fucking prim and normative, and it feels so much like repainting the goddamn barn for the 5,000th time so you don't have to do your other chores.

And if your first reaction was an impulse to lecture me about why this space is really, really important and we need this and this group uses it in this context and blah blah blah, that's exactly the problem. This distinction means NOTHING to most people.

You're trying to quiz people on a 300-level class when they haven't even got their Trans Politics GED yet. If _I_ don't even give a shit, someone who's struggled with gender issues for approximately 36 years (if wanting very badly to be a pink plastic cyborg ponygirl at age 8 counts), all this is gonna do is help the 4channer types tar us as a bunch of insane prudes who want to remake culture in our own image.

We do, of course. But don't TELL them that. O:)

I understand the urge to be militant, I really do. But if there's one thing I learned from my stint as a Christian, it's that the best way to convert is to make your movement look FRIENDLY. Save the spite for actual TERFs and reactionaries, not for people who didn't learn Trans Prescriptivist Etiquette Du Jour before they had the unmitigated nerve to address you.

"I know this may sound pedantic but..." Yeah. It sounds pedantic. And I should have stood up to you instead of venting on Masto, but there is nothing more TEDIOUS to me than talking to someone that concerned about the purity of their semiotic environment. You are going to accomplish NOTHING against the TERFs this way.

@frameacloud WOW. I compared the article with its condition before you started working with it and... _damn_. This is an extraordinary work of scholarship. Thank you yet again for taking this on. 😻​

@Austin_Dern I have never beared! (Have never borne?)

*red plastic raccoon sitting behind a desk recapitulating the Spider-Man meme, except their sex drive is so low they're not even masturbating*

I can't really complain, I have kitties and Europa Universalis 4 and an amazing artist/dragon for partner and a comic and I'm spending the afternoon in a cafe named for a terrible sci-fi comedy.

It's a good life, just right for a bitey exile who needed to be shipped off to the Fake Wildlife Refuge. It just ain't exactly Burning Man and it ain't exactly Plan A, and those feelings that I've missed the last train to Ecstatic Cosmic Love-Pulse-Matrix Synergy with a community of like-minded animal types.

I'll be OK. I'm always OK.

@Phorm YOU HAVE NO IDEA

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🎵​transom cat, transom cat
🎵​fickle neighborhood transom cat
🎵in our window she has sat
🎵too many treats have made her fat
🎵look out, here lurks the transom cat

@kelseyhusky The Jackalope Queen has your backs. =}:3

@001zlnv Ooh, is that the reason? OK, that sounds like a fine excuse, I'm in...

@001zlnv No, but I was practically married to one for most of a decade, do I get partial credit?

I should go ratty someday though. I've always had a soft spot for the little cuties.

@Aradia "Oh hai estrogen!" "Johnn... I mean Jenny, you're our favorite customer!"

#KirschRemakesTheRoom

@Balina (yes Ashley should DEFINITELY get 6 eyes—oh wait is that not what you were intending?)

n.n.n
n.n.n

@KitRedgrave @anthracite Oh, believe me, it's no trouble—especially if you want to be one of the Mixolynes (Kirt and Noa's side, the space-hippie dryads) instead of the Vek-10 (the other side of the story, the cat and mouse techno-monks). We have a HUGE PARTY SCENE coming up on that side. :)

@KitRedgrave It is very very packed. :) I've been arguing that to @anthracite since the start, since she is very "aww, they'll puzzle it out!" about the whole thing. She kinda takes her perceptual skills for granted sometimes and forgets that I, for example, am not half as detail-oriented as her. :)

@KitRedgrave OH! I get it! ^_^

Yeah, they are inside the gigantic versions of themselves that they hopped out of when they first arrived on the station! Hostframes are basically big ol' biological mecha. They show up at the beginning when they hook them up to the local plantlife—they're the things that are taking the samples from the trees. And on p25 you can kinda see them hopping inside them.

We can add a little more detail about that in the dialogue, though! And I might make @anthracite add a clearer transition, maybe another panel early on where we can see them enter their frames in DETAIL. Kirt and Noa are always either hopping into or out of them really fast, now that I go back and look, and... that is kinda confusing.

Thank you! This is all FANTASTIC and I'm making a note to thank you in the acknowledgments.

Would you like a cameo in Chapter 2 (if we get that far) to show our appreciation? <3

@KitRedgrave Oh! If you're talking about the bit where Kirt (bird) and Noa (pony) are having their first contact with the cat and mouse from the other side, while the Big Monstery Thing smashes stuff—yeah, that's a known issue. :D

That is indeed taking place in two places at once, and we have a note to tack a "meanwhile..." on that. :>

Sorry to flood you with text by the way, we're just so excited you're liking it! ^____^

@KitRedgrave Hmm. That is kind of something we were concerned about. Could I trouble you for a couple of specific examples? We could probably either work on some stronger transitions or drop in some extra dialogue to fix it.

And thank you so, so very much for your feedback. We have been kinda starving for this. <3 I'm so glad it's at least looking good, but I am concerned we're running the story a little too fast for it to be easy to follow—this has been a concern of mine since the start...

@KitRedgrave (Also, there are a lot of edits for clarity planned in the publication draft—do please let us know if there's any plot point you find really confusing or frustrating! That's exactly the sort of thing we're on the lookout for right now...)