Empress of Mars: Undisputed @zebratron2084@awoo.space

current mood: wishing there were a way to cc: every single sapient being on an e-mail that just says "no. fuck off."

Heh. Looks like Myspleen bootlegged the Cremaster Cycle.

I have zero interest in watching it. But it always makes me smile when some piece of media that an artist's made scarce for Lofty Artistic Reasons gets leaked.

Given a choice between creator's rights and, you know, actually being able to FUCKING PRESERVE OUR OWN CULTURE, I'm always gonna side with posterity.

It's the same way that I smile when an Very Serious Musician refuses to clarify a lyric and swears it'll go to their grave with them... and then another band member pops up and tells the world.

You wrote the damn thing for people to see and/or hear it. The moment you release it, it is CARRION. As long as you got paid something fair for it (and you probably didn't for TOTALLY UNRELATED reasons), every single artist, archivist, remixer, appropriator, and troublemaker on earth has every right to metabolize it any way they like.

@Phorm (we're still 90% sure she's the same little stripey kitten who tried to play Transom Cat at four weeks old and got herself good and stranded)

@Phorm she remains that most dangerous of creatures, a clever kitten

yup, dashed home to check on her, leaving my laptops brick at cafe in process. she was right there on the porch chair giving me such an innocent look you could *hear* the sparkle effects on her halo

English still really needs an expression for "I don't enjoy your company at all, for reasons that are neither of our fault, but I approve of you and would probably speak up to save your silly ass if it ever came down to it."

No particular referent or incident here, just idle thoughts on the way back from cafe. And betting there are a nonzero number of people who (justifiably) feel that way about me although perhapa without the ass-saving part. n.n;

...

Goddamn it, Artie.

I think she's OK up there. She and Sugarfoot have both been up there before, and when I went to grab the stepladder and rescue them, they each greeted me right on the ground 30 seconds later. So I think she's OK, I think I spotted the tree she gets up and down there with, but...

Dammit Artie!

I'm just gonna go ahead to the cafe and check on her when I get back. If she really is stuck up there, another half-hour won't hurt her and might teach her a lesson...

@kistaro Don't forget Deutsche Bank thinks this is a privilege you should pay extra for.

Set banks on fire early and often.

https://reason.com/2020/11/12/should-remote-workers-pay-a-tax-for-the-privilege-of-using-their-home-as-an-office/

@anthracite It's absolutely bizarre for me to hear Seattle included as a "big city." It wasn't exactly that when I fell in love with it, something more the size -- and authenticity -- of NOLA. No longer true by the time we left, sadly.

@chandra I still have the address and password tucked away SOMEWHERE in my sprawling To-Do file. n.n;

@zx3 Yeah. I wish I could join you on that "throwing rocks out in the cold" network. It sounds like it really suits my mood lately. *hug*

@Phorm Apparently, there's a lot of it about these days. Pretty much everyone's reporting more or less the same thing. There really is just... nothin. I never imagined it would end this way, that all that energy was something that could just... go.

ok y'all basically confirmed that we are just in a social media Dark Age right here and if there's gonna be any trouble i'm gonna have to be the one to make it again >:D

i think i might actually be up for that. still pondering running a ttrpg online or something.

@chandra Yeah, not poking my head back into HoC is one of my big regrets from the last couple years. It's... it's been kind of a blur.

I think one of the things that's been really getting to me is the contraction of my social life online.

I haven't really been reaching out here, I keep changing Twitter accounts and losing people in the process, and for real-time chat I'm just hanging on to Telegram even though most people seem to have moved on.

So. Where is everyone? Are you all on Discord? Are there ANY good chatrooms there or anywhere else? Is there ANY roleplaying left except for F-List?

You really have to respect a comedy troupe with the balls to end their show with lavishly reconstructed bloopers from a movie that none of them was actually in.

(The State does the entire Cannonball Run blooper reel, verbatim, at the end of S04E04. It's funnier than it has any right to be, especially since Cannonball Run wasn't funny.)

On the other hand... I do have a stable job that's draining but still oddly fun, I have a patient and talented wife who things are going well with, I have six adorable fuzzy creatures who seem to like me, and I live in one of the most beautiful cities in the world, one that's barely got a winter.

And I have a classic Taoist Farmer kind of situation here, because the plague isolation has SUCKED... but if anything, I was a lot whinier about the social isolation and increasing distance from any online community back then.

Suddenly, none of it was even an option. And I sat at home and made the best of things with Peggy for a year. And it was good. And we didn't get washed out to sea. And we haven't died, so far, of any pandemics. And when/if we get through this, the world -- hell, just this city -- is going to seem SO EXCITING.

All I have to do is not steer the metaphorical car off a cliff in the meantime. And some days that just feels really hard, because I'm REALLY getting tired.

@Austin_Dern *hug* Yeah, see last reply to Leucrotta -- basically, we're OK, there are just a lot of reminders of how screwed up and precarious everything is right now. I'm more concerned about them than me, present company included, but it still pings the anxiety. We're... OK. We'll be better if we get a stimulus, and better still if my boss keeps failing to notice the slow degradation of my ability to focus over the last year. n.n;;

The cats are kind of a whole different thing. Just... far more responsibility over other living beings than we ever, ever, ever set out to have. We'd even avoided having pets as an adult for that exact reason. And now... here they are, and they're sweet and beautiful and wild and I love them and they scare the shit outta me and nothing I do for them will ever be enough to buy my sense of security back.

@Leucrotta I guess a lot of it is really just... missing people and missing the sense that I was part of anything that meant a damn. Though it is nice seeing Peg kinda shoulder that burden, playing Dragon Witch Mom Lady for a while while I"m the relatively quiet obscure one. Scary but kinda restful. :)

@Leucrotta (And yet, i still feel like I have ZERO right to complain, because in actuality... yeah, everything is ok at the moment. Even the cats seem relatively happy. Main worry there is a night of 32 degree weather coming up, and I think they've got pretty good shelter in the abandoned basement next door...)