Empress of Mars: Undisputed @zebratron2084@awoo.space

OK, here we go.

Zero guarantees of ANYTHING here. But it's been a rough year, I've had the energy, I know I' no the only one, and I want to at least say I TRIED.

So.

The year is 2071.

Trumpism, global warming, and pandemics all did their damage, but we're finally seeing our way past them.

Now there are other problems.

Kids are playing with their genes like 1970s kids played with payphones. Smartphones reside in your forebrain and tap into 11th-dimensional geometry. A second wave of Bad Memetics is about to hit, the biggest since the Internets of old. And an obscure physics paper has just provided the first solid explanation for the exploitable glitches we've recently found in reality.

It's OK. The Artemus Corporation is way ahead of it all. And they're our descendants, so it'll be fine... right?

The psionics renaissance started ten years ago. Just like everything else, weird gay furries wandered in and did it better, taking the work of mere neurohackers and turning it into a bulldozer for superstrings. Nobody's good at it yet, but there's absolutely no doubt: magic happens and it all happens in Dimension 11*.

*registered trademark of the Artemus Corporation

Unfortunately, furries are only human. Now they're the power structure. The Artemis Corporation is what happened when they sold out. Now they're the fastest-growing neurotheological corporation in America, selling transcendent identity change and a share in the cosmic lottery.

You were a perfectly content resident of Terra's recovering biomes, eating and/or avoiding being eaten as you found appropriate. Now, thanks to the Artemus Corporation and its fervent quest for the psionic Holy Grail, you've got a forebrain, *neat* little opposable thumbs, and opinions about economic policy.

You live in a twelve-story office complex on the US West Coast. You spend a lot of your time hooked up to machines. The humans in charge spend a lot of time staring intensely into flashing screens, injecting things into themselves and you, and fucking each other. Thus far, you have not been invited, though you have had some fascinating conversations about why. You fear they may be some value of "insane." You also fear that they, and you, might be on the verge of a terrifying power. You do not understand this power, and it's becoming painfully clear that they don't either.

You suspect that all the information about the outside world, in that little squeaktoy version of the Internet they've given you, is a great big lie.

You recently learned what demons are and are seriously afraid they might be trying to put one in you.

This is an RPG about a "psychotronic" retro-horror future where psionics are real, leftists were right about damn near everything, and furry has spawned a genuinely dangerous Scientology-like cult that is on the forefront of terrifying reality-breaking technology.

Pitch me a character. Feel absolutely free to invent new details of this world, as long as they fit the above reasonably well. You are a captive of the Artemus Corporation. Animal-brain architecture is the hot new frontier; you are an genetically "uplifted," brain-grafted animal captive with a human intellect. They intent to use you to study psionic technology; they are convinced you are their path to godhood. They throw swinging parties but they scare the fuck out of you. You're starting to see things that aren't there.

Influences: John Carpenter, David Cronenberg, David Lynch, Altered States, Stranger Things, Upstream Color, A Cure For Wellness, Suspiria, This House Has People In It, Us, Children of the Mirror, The Prisoner, They Live, Buckaroo Banzai, Liquid Sky, In The Mouth of Madness, Cabin in the Woods, The Shining, Beyond the Black Rainbow

Please assign your character 30 points in the following traits: Lust, Avarice, Greed, Wrath, Gluttony, Sloth, Pride.

Be warned that EVERY POSSIBLE content warning applies to the potential content and its replies. This, if it goes anywhere at all, will be a psychedelic horror story.

(oh, and just as a creative aid/for shits, here's the list of themes for this RPG experiment from my notes:)

THEMES:
* paranoia and delusion
* hyperreality
* institutional power
* observation
* identity loss
* transformation
* hazardous knowledge
* altered consciousness
* parapsychology
* technological alienation
* repression/assertion of biological imperatives
* social control
* alienation
* transcendence via existential horror
* media simulacra
* broken geometry?

@JoyfulSkunk *cackles madly for around thirty seconds* XD XD XD <3

the ongoing revival of the conversation around identity play and stuff is the first thing that's really brought me intense joy in the last few months that wasn't peggy or one of our cats so thank you <3

a quick insight into my very sophisticated satirical methodology

@Leucrotta Nice try there, Philip K. Dick. Tell it to the gal with the coyote necklace, selling tactical miniatures door to door. :> <3

@monsterblue I'm not sure if the band members where *themselves* tigers, mind you-- they were a bit evasive on the topic, though to be fair, most of us have a damned time holding guitar picks 'cause of, you know, the huge murderous claws and stuff. 🐯​

(But I know what you mean. <3 )

And any band named for a Calvin and Hobbes reference is incapable of lying in their lyrics. It's true.

a tribute to every one of my friends who's been down on themselves lately <3

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0voDonqtBVY

LYRICS:

You see a cloudy day
I see a sunny sky
I gave you a handful of sour grass
That made you cry

But if I say they're flowers
Then I guess it means it's true
If I say I love you
Then I guess it means I do
I'll see what I want to see
In everything you do
It makes me happy
To find the good in you

@Aradia I was braced for some uncomfortable poignant feels when I saw that CW, so I took a DEEP BREATH first... and I got this instead.

And now I'm really glad I held my breath. 😼​

@Phorm kitty sign in five

four

three

two

one

...

kitty sign now:

🐯​​🐯​​🐯​​

*disputed

in the not too distant tiger
next tiger ad
there was a tiger named rez
not too tiger from you or me
she worked at the tiger institute
just a tiger face in a tiger suit
she did a good job tigering up the place
but the humans didn't like her so they shot her into space
we'll send her crazy tigers
the worst we can find
she'll have to sit and rule them all
and that actually suits her fine
now remember the empress* doesn't know
when her empire begins or ends
so she naps on Mons Olympus
waiting for her tiger friends
tiger roll call
miss bitey
hobbes junior
montecore ii
striiiiiipes
if you're wondering why all evidence says
she's just some guy from earth
just repeat to yourself it's mastodon
and don't be a nitpicky jerk
for martian tiger theater 3000

@Leucrotta Yeah, this was a frequent problem for me in Seattle especially, with the large number of... not entirely stable people out on any given crowded public street. I seem to either have a habit of accidentally annoying these people, or it happens to everyone and I just assume it's my fault.

@Leucrotta for someone with as much social anxiety as i have, this story is practically a koan <3

@Austin_Dern i am almost heartbroken if there's never been a toy furry named galoob

@JoyfulSkunk Oh, and don't create a MUCK that has a userbase of around 50 and you're around 45 of them and the other five are a constant revolving door of confused people who registered without realizing it's all just... you... kinda... talking... to yourself. O_o; 'Cause that would be considered a little creepy.

True story. :)

@JoyfulSkunk Oh, and allthat only even applies to ordinary social media.

If you're in an all-furry venue like a MUCK or VRChat, I suspect the etiquette is solidly on the side of "you probably have dozens of characters and that's 100% normal as long as you don't use that to bother anyone."

It was sure the case on TapestriesMUCK; I had over 75 characters in my career and while it did cause sometimes with people I didn't get along with, nobody ever got upset about my huge "wardrobe" in itself.

@JoyfulSkunk If there is any explicit etiquette that recommends against doing it, though, I have never encountered it myself! I think this is one of those situations where the going etiquette is "don't be an abusive jerk and make us have to make up rules about this" and absolutely everything I have ever observed in you tells me this is 0% or less of a risk in your case. <3

@JoyfulSkunk I'm of the feeling it's 100% ethical and permissible unless it's willfully being leveraged to do something *else* unethical like ban evasion. There's nothing wrong in itself with wanting the animating force behind a character to remain anonymous, or with having multiple characters. "Maintaining kayfabe" is a vital part of the spirit of online RP, IMHO, and it REALLY bothers me the sort of suspicion identity-play and anonymity have seem to have on modern Web 6.6.6 social media. ;p