Empress of Mars: Undisputed @zebratron2084@awoo.space

this basically continues a habit from Peg's previous work that was one of the main things that endeared me to it:

we don't really talk about the weird gender stuff, not in the foreground. we never defend it. we never open it up for debate. it's just THERE. in the world context, it's been settled centuries ago and everybody takes it for granted. we won. nobody cares. it's just there.

it's an ideology-penetrating bullet. the audience is already hooked on the story by the time they're hit out of the blue with "oh btw carol has 3 parents and one's technically a tractor"-- or reread parallax, look up kirt's gender, and realize it's basically "malt and cloves"

Oh gosh. I'd forgotten JUST how prophetic ZBS Audio's "Ruby: The Adventures of a Galactic Gumshoe" was about Fully Automatic Luxury Gay Space Communism.

If you don't have time/interest in hearing the whole series (you DO, it's FANTASTIC), at least go look up "The Android Sisters" on Youtube. They're propagandtastic!

also it's gonna be so gay

i giggle madly every time i look at noa and wonder how many straight ppl are gonna look at them and assume they and kirt are a perfectly normal het couple

noa is VERY they— they're technically a blob of (adorable, hoofy) fungus, they basically look like passion fruit puree inside, their own culture's closest equivalent for Noa's "gender" is basically "peach and anise flavored," and their society's reproductive system is 100% fully bespoke and effectively handled at the planetary/elder level, ffs

@kelseyhusky @Leucrotta Heavy seconding here.

oh fuck

my comic is gonna be so pretty

just like its dragon mom

😻​

@Phorm @acetone_kitten @anthracite

I mean, I think Peg's pretty obviously the Wyrm. Just LOOK at her. And there's nothin' wyld about Canadians (or Lunarians), so I guess that's me. 🐯​

They're playing "All Star" at Monkey Monkey Cafe and now I'm starting to wonder if I did something to offend them. I can not interpret this as anything but a personal affront, except possibly a general affront to humanity.

I mean, there may still be a universe in which this song is enjoyable, but it would have to be a parallel in which human civilization somehow bothered to invent Smash Mouth yet somehow did not invent the film trailer.

(And it was Anthy, Acey, and me, respectively, in case you were curious. Me. Tiger cut thread. *bares claws* Swish swish.)

@acetone_kitten @anthracite

I am SO HORKED OFF that nobody ever said this to @acetone_kitten @anthracite and me when we were all dating.

The compulsive nattering part of my thoughtstream has been absolutely FIXATED on filking "Holland 1945" by Neutral Milk Hotel of all the dang things. It's a sad and poignant song, borderline sacred, and not the sort of thing that I would ever fuck around with lightly or deliberately.

On the other hand, my feverish brain did hatch out the line "feeding spaghetti to Ving Rhames" and I'm forced to admit that's pretty good. *blush* Still ain't gonna complete it, thanks...

🐯​ gonna 🍴🙍‍♂️​
🐯​ gonna 🍴​👨‍💻​
🐯​ gonna 🍴👮​
🐯​ gonna 🍴👨‍💼​
🐯​ gonna 🍴🕵️​
🐯​ gonna 🍴💂​
🐯​ gonna 🍴​🤴
🐯​ gonna 🍴​🎅
🐯​ gonna 🍴🌃​
🐯​ gonna 🍴🌎​
🐯​ gonna 🍴👼​
🐯​ gonna 🍴🌌​
🐯​ probly not gonna 🍴​
🐯​ def not gonna 🍴🅤
❤️​

(...unless you make a "swallowing pride" joke about that next to last one, in which case your life is forfeit unto me >_< )

@Leucrotta Applying the commutative principle to that, Weird Al, and Oscar Mayer, we get:

"My Godzilla has a first name, it's K-A-I-J-U..."

@anthracite Yup, that's organized religion, all right. >_<

Was browsing an image fold. Came across a snapshot the Obligatory species whiteboard from one of the last furry gatherings I attended in Seattle.

*Their* names were on it, as well as a lot of other people who never actually blew up at me, but just kinda drifted away and never contact me anymore.

I just don't even know. I guess I survived all this with a lot more than some of the folks I know. It still leaves me wondering if I didn't kinda lead everybody straight off a cliff, in pursuit of something it was totally naive to think was ever gonna come to anything.

At least the sunsets here are pretty and we have kittens on the front porch and I have imaginary space kids to write for.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6nKbDzLEgg

In general, I'm just full of anxiety and spinning around and flailing today. The insurance stuff is the only remotely scary thing I can think of right now—everything is just existential dread—so I guess I'm gonna do my best to chalk it up to another brain malfunction.

It would just be nice to have a way to force the alarm console to clear, you know? Nobody left me the keys to this damn thing.

On the other hand, Peg's been a paragon of reptilian patience and calm, while I've been running around flailing like Kermit hunting for Crazy Harry. I owe her a whole lot of petting.

(Fig. 1: Crazy Harry. This toot has been captioned for the Muppet-impaired.)

Blerrrrrrgh. Been nervous all day about dealing with the healthcare.gov bureaucracy again. Finally got up the nerve to suspend work for a bit and call.

I'd give this attempt a B, maybe a B+. They assured me that they're going to escalate this to an expedited second review of my documents and someone should get back to me "soon." They had no information about what order of magnitude this "soon" is, but at least they had the decency to admit it and be apologetic about it.

Also, apparently my documentation deadline is now extended to end of July, any insurance that I do get during that month can be made retroactive to July 1st, and the CSR was at least sympathetic when I told her I really could not accept a month-long coverage gap.

So I'm waiting again, and maybe this time I'll finally find out what's actually holding things up? At least the information they've given me is starting to line up, though given I've had to call SIX TIMES now to push things along, maybe it's just matching up 'cause the sample set is getting so big. >___<

Finishing up an epic game of Civ V, and just got to drop a Great Scientist randomly named "Rosalind Franklin" on a Biology tech.

Damn that felt good. Watson and Crick can go fuck themselves.

@Balina If we can actually get anybody to give a damn about the first chapter... this comic is gonna go *places*, I promise.

My main influence for the Ch 1 script was "just" the Coen Brothers and Repo Man. My main influences for Ch 2 are the 1970's Body Snatchers, Carpenter's The Thing, eXistenZ, and Upstream Color... 🙀​

Our good Baron here is gonna see some _shit_ in his lifetime(s)...