Empress of Mars: Undisputed @zebratron2084@awoo.space

Fuck it, I'm just gonna let Dawn write the rest of Parallax 'cause if the last three readings are any indication, she has a much better idea what to do with it than I do. :D

This kid Dawn scares me sometimes. Both of them, Dawn Jr. (Lo Scarabeo) and Dawn Sr. (handmade edition). Just like their mother! ❤️​

I've been seeing a fascinating pivot from /r/The_Donald's crowd on Reddit:

Some of them have started acknowledging climate change is real. Their new take is "liberal do-gooders should stay out of things they don't understand, and leave the solutions up to actual engineers." Never mind that that's not what the _actual climatologists_ say to do...

This is an interesting pivot, though. They're getting ready to pull the "oh, we believed all along" trick, mark my words.

a modern day retelling of the diogenes myth except instead of a lantern he carries around a bluetooth speaker thats constantly playing doodlebob from spongebob going "NEEOY YOY MINOY NAYDEE ONMOMOY" just loud enough that nobody's sure if they really hear it

@troodon Sure! But it's not too complicated except for a couple weird start-up issues. (It's pegged to your phone number which is... odd. I think it was designed for people who actually text.)

@troodon I'm mostly on telegram, @zebratron2084 there as well! But don't feel you have to mess with a whole new platform for me! Masto works fine for me too!

@troodon *shrug* It's okay, sib. As the French say, sesst lah vee-yay.

Did I mention you and the gentle headbumps have been a HUGE source of comfort since that all fell apart, and you're one of the ones I'll miss the very most? <3

(Incidentally, do you actually have any preferred real-time chat method at the moment? I'd love to just be able to sit and BS with you in a less asynchronous format if you'd be into that, esp. once we've moved...)

But you're still not quite sure whether it's a comedy or a tragedy. (I mean, look what they did to Riverdale. :> ) So you keep watching and praying to your gods of choice that the writers know what the fuck they're doing and the weird otter kids, little though you comprehend them, are all going to make it through the finale.

It's not a cartoon adventure anymore, not for you, and never will be again. But you're forced to admit: you're still hooked.

And then, half a season in, you finally realize... wait, no. This isn't the wrong show at all. It's the reboot. YOU'RE the faculty now.

And the crazy space kids are still having their crazy space adventures right under your noses, turning into otters and dyeing themselves blurple and grellow and splicing their DNA with jellyfish.

And it's okay. It's not as much fun to watch as the original, too vicarious, but at least you don't feel too old for it anymore.

@Soreth See, you *get* it. <3

It's been like sitting down to watch Galaxy High School and finding out that, in total Mandela Effect defiance of all your memories, Doyle and Amy are in their thirties, and the plots and characters are more like something out of the Big Chill or Return of the Secaucus Seven.

This is what that no-good mangy Coyote god warned me about. And He was right, too, the son of a cosmic mutt. It's actually perfectly survivable, even cozy, in a "winter sun" kind of way.

@Soreth

> Huh. Parenthetical is longer than the rest of the statement.

Hey, as long as you don't go full House Of Leaves* or Pale Fire** on me, it's fine.

*,** These are, of course, both novels where most/all of the narrative gradually transitions from the main text body to the footnotes. I, of course, would never stoop to such a pretentious device. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua.

@Soreth I noticed, believe me. Trading MST3K references and such with you were among my favorite memories of the place. I miss you. <3

The "great rooms" at Transliminal Alpha and Beta always felt a bit uncomfortable to me on a day-to-day basis for Reasons. But yeah, I have always been a bit of a recluse. Even when I was in a fraternity, my nickname was "The Phantom Brother."

Going out of your way to make me feel welcome was very, very much appreciated. I'm verklempt. *hug*

In better news, several friends from the CabbitAnalytics@Twitter days have popped up here, and it's restoring a bit of my faith that we'll all meet up in the Supercontext someday and be happy after all.

And I got a few inside tips from a friend that dispelled a lot of my guilt and self-hate over Transliminal stuff. Thanks, you know who you are. <3

Now my mood is good enough to... um... write about Alien Pony Tragedy again! (Sorry, Noa... it's a living. I promise good things by Ch. 5.)

@LeDiva If you don't start mentioning that on your resume, explicitly and in those exact terms, I will be very disappointed of course. :D

I dunno. This was supposed to be an attempt to talk about a bad dream, not to finally open up about everything that happened. If nobody was all that curious before, I don't know why they would be now.

Maybe missing Bandaza has got it on my mind, even though I'd already resolved to skip it regardless. Whatever.

Anyhow. The dragon is spiky and a little cold-blooded but she *never* leaves me feeling like I'm supposed to guess what I did wrong. Life's less cozy but less confusing.

...I think? I honestly have no idea to this day.

But I do know that I was using the word "zugzwang" on a daily basis back then. ("A chess position in which every single possible move would hurt you, and you'd like to pass your turn but you can't.")

Firing me into the sun like they did sure ended that sense of zugzwang. I'm grateful for that. (And incidentally, for the YEARS of free rent and sincere attempts to care for someone who could be very, very difficult when depressed.)

I'm still confused as hell by the whole thing. I still to this day have absolutely no idea what specific I said to make them go from friendly and recovering (as far as I know) to Defcon 1 in a day's time. I can think of a lot of things, but I swear to the gods, during that last exchange that she blocked me for, I was confused and upset at Kristy, not angry or hostile at the least. She *had* to misconstrue at least one piece of genuine well-wishing in order to take offense...

It's all right, sort of. I've run the math in my head a thousand times. There's no way of recovering from this. In every single scenario, it looks like either I did something unforgivable or they did. There's no away around it.

And they did me a big favor. I was stuck in a rut there, feeling superfluous and unreal, lonely every day among four other people. I miss them and it's lonely here outside the stream of Big Group Furry Socialization. But I did not thrive there all alone.

I had a dream about them. I had an argument with Jessie and left Kristy a question about where I stood, and got back a lengthy message telling me I was still loved and valid, and explaining exactly what had happened at length-- the exact opposite pairing it actually happened with, with the exact opposite result.

Clearly some part of my subconscious still thinks some kind of good resolution is possible from them someday. I guess I have to work harder to disabuse it of that notion.

Ate something. Drank something. Harassed dragon. By feline standards, I have already achieved complete victory over today. So I'm going back to bed for about 23-25 hours. Have a good "morning" or whatever you suckers who actually do things and see people call it.