Empress of Mars: Undisputed @zebratron2084@awoo.space

The most fundamental and defining (if not necessarily unique) human emotion is the capacity for grievance over purely symbolic affronts.

@Phorm @anthracite We have a saying where I come from: "Don't be right, Sparky." <3

@Phorm @anthracite

@Phorm IT'S A LION!

@Phorm Oh, look at how cool those papes look!

"When you're young, it seems like there's people everywhere-- even when you don't want there to be. But then you get older and it's like... where did everybody go?"

--David (Nathan Fielder), "David: The Story of David" (findable on Vimeo)

Feelin' this one hard today.

@chimerror Those follows are always a right laugh. :D

@anthracite "Underfoot." *mrap* ​ *mrap* ​ *mrap* ​ *mrap* ​ *mrap* ​ *mrap* ​ *mrap* ​ *mrap* ​

Just a moment of appreciation.

While chatting with Peg, I reflected on how there is so much I would just come right out and TALK about here on Masto that I never would on Twitte.

Twitter feels like Outside with everybody watching. Twitter feels like a crowded TGIFridays in your hometown, where you always might be twenty feet away from some motherfucker who knows you JUST well enough to feel entitled to come in and tell you off, if you say something they don't like.

Masto doesn't feel like my home, and it doesn't feel like a party, and there are entire rooms it's better if I just never open the doors to. But it at least feels like it's Indoors, and anybody I gotta deal with will probably at least have some context and sympathy.

It's interesting. I mean: I'm notoriously contentious, and probably obnoxious, as fuck. I am not known for holding back online. But I don't fight here. Like, ever. It's a place where a rhetorical brawl is unlikely to break out, and there's plenty of incentive to call it off immediately if it starts.

This, to my shame, is part of the reason I went back to Twitter. Sometimes I do want to walk straight into a Wretched Hive and pick a good old honest bar fight. But it feels really good to have a place where I don't feel like I have to watch my back, put up a front, or most importantly, listen to ideologies that make me want to smack people.

@anthracite Yes but Shadow does not have THE POWER OF DETERMINATION nor the POWER OF TORTIES BEING NOTORIOUSLY DEMANDING PAINS IN THE BUTT XD

@anthracite I also strongly suggest you put one of these up in the vicinity/block every time you see a rainbow flag in town...

(er... that CW should be "hopefully ONLY -" obviously i'm hoping for a plus here in the long run -- sugarfoot might be my least favorite of her clan but that only means i just love her a few tons :) )

@anthracite It's so very like you to put a MILD THREAT on what is functionally an ad. *smirks* *sighs in formal capacity as your manager* Love the image but lose the vague insinuation it will hack your phone maybe? :)

Oh shit, I forgot to mention. Earlier today, Artie excused herself by getting up on the windowsill and leaping straight out.

She was totally fine, made the jump neatly. But this is a MAJOR CHALLENGE to the cat-reduction security measures we have in place. If she learns to reverse the process, she will have Window Entry technology.

Only Shadow and Sugarfoot have previously been able to make the leap from fence to sill and get in through the studio window. We were really kinda hoping nobody else would learn. :)

At least it wasn't Peebles. I know how persistent that girl is and I'm not sure a CLOSED window would even stop her from trying over and over again...

@typhlosion Okay, but I did NOT know about his (largely unrequited) romance with chess...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcel_Duchamp#Transition_from_art_to_chess

That quote about being a "victim of chess" really got to me. I know what it feels like to love a hobby that does not love your talents back.

@Aradia Purely out of intellectual curiosity/missing chatting with you... Do you have any examples in mind of something good and effective from the 70s and something annoying from contemporary culture?

I think you have a damn fine point though: we are a lot more effective at moving the culture when we're just being calmly, unapologetically ourselves, however "weird" or "mundane" that might be, instead of putting on a deliberately provocative show. It's been a huge boon that we even _can_ do that now.

I can't help thinking of me in 2005 on LJ, desperately afraid "They" could actually meaningfully harm queer furry culture compared to now. Now I can't even get a rise out of Trump cultists by being an inflatable zebra at them... and that has its own ineluctable power.

Queer people take up space now and there's no point in Them fighting it. We're part of the scenery. We're as alien as a tree to most of America, and we're rooted just as deep here.

Aaaaand the little white/bald spots on Sugarfoot's nose have not only spread to her ear, they might be a little crusty.

Vet time. She is NOT gonna be a happy kitty. Still, after a little research I'm... reasonably assured this ain't "might lose her" level of bad. I'm suspecting it's fleas or ringworm or something. It *is* summer in a very, very fertile area of the country.

Still. JUST enough scary stuff on the veterinary web to be unnerving. Peg's gonna try to haul her in this week. If it ends up being anything complicated or pricey, we might pass the hat, but if it's routine we probably got this one. ^_____^

@typhlosion Oh, I know, I'm a big fan of Dada in general. L.H.O.O.Q. is IMHO one of the best puns in human history. :) Plus, I mean: early queer inspiration? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcel_Duchamp#Rrose_S%C3%A9lavy

behold:

princess artiemuss

(not pictured: lair; invisible jet; weather-control ray; satellite network; minions)

(each sold separately)