Empress of Mars: Undisputed @zebratron2084@awoo.space

Whew. OK, there go two of my sources of terror. MIA friend is accounted for, and I have had a thumpin' good time debunking all the idiots on the Tropical Weather subreddit who are certain the two storms bearing down on NOLA will fuse into a "Voltron storm" (actual quote) and destroy us all.

Sitting here headdesking at an Earnest Young Queer Radical on Twitter breathlessly blaming global warming on capitalism.

Honey, I took two 20th-Century Russia courses from an expert on the topic. There were Polish industrial villages under Stalinism that were so polluted that 20% of their children had birth defects. They practically destroyed the Aral Sea with their geoengineering projects. They were every bit as happy to exploit natural resources as the capitalists, maybe happier.

So maybe, just maybe you need to loosen your net a little bit and admit the problem is with ANY large acquisitive industrial society. These are problems that could plague Our Glorious People's Revolutionary Future too.

I miss roleplaying. I miss creative collaboration. I miss deep conversations. I miss any contact whatsoever with my fantasy life, which in retrospect was just something I could not do alone.

I can't even begin to calculate the disproportionate damage this all must be doing to my fellow daydreamer types. I'm so sorry, and I admit I also have a certain amount of survivors' guilt since I know it could be far far worse for me right now.

Oh, and coffee, but I mean... I left that off the list for the same reason I left off "red blood cells" and "adenosine triphosphate."

The main things keeping me going today, in order:

* Anthracite
* your discussion of songs you sing to your cats
* our cats (even if Shadow snubbed me this morning)
* the increasingly remote hope that the friend who's MIA will show up and be fine
* the increasingly remote hope that a certain loud ugly man will die in a cartoonishly grisly fashion mid-speech

@JulieSqveakaroo Nah, we're getting by, I'm just not putting anything at all away right now. We're doing a lot better than most people. :<

Yeah, I'm definitely in a mild failure state. This morning (read: 3 pm) I could barely muster the executive function to feed the cats, and I'm pretty much stuck behind the keyboard all day for the rest of the week if I want to catch up on work.

One of my friends is MIA after an upset and I'm getting worried.

We might have another hurricane on the way soon (and I still have no idea what to do with the cats if we evacuate).

I'm basically in the red and praying for a stimulus check that's STILL probably not coming anytime soon.

Trump's ratings are rebounding and as always I HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA WHY OR HOW.

Parallax is dead in the water and I really don't if the depression blocking it will even go away when COVID and Trump do.

After months without a serious hypochondriac episode, I'm scared shitless something is happening to my retinas. (I think something is, but it's probably a harmless vitreous detachment.)

I just can't do this much more without losing max SAN, max MP, and maybe a little max WIS.

And I'm still in better shape than most people. Just needed to scream a little. I'll be okay.

@hystericempress https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJklHwoYgBQ [cw: uhhh it's adult swim but it's a really underrated satire of exactly what you're talking about]

Shadow is basically this but it's not ironic or comedic in any way. Peg and I only barely outrank her.

https://www.reddit.com/r/webcomics/comments/i9kpzv/dont_undersell_yourself_ralph/

@Soreth Prithee, what is this otherworldly beast, with the head of a bird and the body of a bird?!

now i want a sona that's either a crow who's painted themselves a bluejay disguise or is a bluejay who behaves exactly like a stereotypical crow but gets away with everything

oh shit, blue jays are corvids too

i haven't been keeping an eye on them

please tell me somebody has been keeping an eye on them

@anthracite oh YES

@mawr I can't say a word against the summary itself, that's some pretty damning stuff that I can neither debunk nor ignore... but I gotta say as a side note, seeing a phrase like "Something Awful Forums luminary" still makes something sour rise up in my throat. Kamala Harris isn't the only one with a hell of a lot of harm to answer for.

@zx3 That is undoubtedly correct but beyond the scope of our 2020 project. :)

People seem to kinda forget that this is not by far the right's first dance with moral panic and conspiracy-minded delusion.

It's not that the madness itself is new, it's just that it's (a) really focused this time and (b) targeted mostly at mainstream American institutions this time.

It used to be the Red Scare. It used to be Satanic Panic. It used to be backwards messages in rock music. It used to be drugs and/or razor blades in halloween candy.

It used to be about the Care Bears "forming a new pantheon to replace God." (This is a real example from my childhood, Trinity Broadcast Network circa 1984.)

And it used to be, ironically, about Russia, Russia, Russia. John Birch types trying to convince us that the typical Soviet citizen was effectively a brainwashed robot who wanted first and foremost to destroy the US -- and not, say, a disaffected citizen just trying to get by in a society that had stopped making sense.

And then it was about Evil Muslims coming to get us, in a wave of violence that just never came.

There's no more or less logic behind it now than there was then. It's just been weaponized and turned on the media, science, and anyone who has the nerve to be skeptical about capitalism.

If there's one thing I'm grateful for during this mess that isn't Peggy, my parents, or you folks... it's the fact that I finally have a job that is not only fairly COVID-proof, it actually allows me to USE MY FUCKING BRAIN and be analytical on a daily basis.

I can not imagine how much lower my morale would be if I were doing grunt work every day, like my old transcription job. I always just feel so much more *functional* after I write up someone's grading sheet, especially when I feel like I've given them good advice that will help them KEEP THEIR FUCKING JOB during the epidemic.

@Soreth see that you do >_<

@Soreth *salutes* :D

@Soreth *sighs lovingly and cuts-and-pastes* I mean, you asked for it, you got it. You're in. :)