Empress of Mars: Undisputed @zebratron2084@awoo.space

Heh. "Lips Like Sugar" followed immediately by "Black Country Rock" and Blondie's "Dreaming."

Someone at this cafe must have been tipped off that it's some old fart's birthday.

@001zlnv Hmm, if I do that Prisoner revisitation I was threatening @troodon with, I might give the protagonist a pet mini-Rover. Or a full-size sapient one as a secret lover, after she discovers they've been hiding their sapience and rich emotional lives from Nos. 1 & 2 all along. :D

@hystericempress This... is the best... damn... birthday present... I have ever received. 😻​😻​😻​😻​😻​

And you get to be the first to test out my snazzy new birthday manticore chassis by getting pouncemauled into a flat disc (which we will of course promptly pump back to 3D)... *HUGHUGHUGCHEW*

@Balina I mean, I can't pretend a gaggle of small vicious geese wearing RCGs would be kinda adorable... but isn't it kinda hard when they don't have ears? It'd, like, triple your velcro budget at BEST. :)

@anthracite Gonna exercise my birthday privilege for a mauling-immune hot take here, my dear fierce dragoness:

First, while I'll agree Let It Be is one of their weakest albums—and I can see why its folky direction would NOT appeal to you, o itchqueen ( <3! )—I would still defend "Two of Us" and "Long and Winding Road" with teeth and claws.

Second, as for Maggie Mae, it's a traditional Liverpudlian folk song, and I think it's a defensible reference to their roots. John used to play it during his skiffle phase when he was in The Quarrymen. It's a goof on their history, on the same level of "Her Majesty."

Few albums lack *any* filler tracks, after all. (Only Brian Eno and My Bloody Valentine have ever recorded an album where every track was perfect. FIGHT ME. 🐯​ ) It'd be like complaining that TMBG's "The Day That Love Came To Play" or "Are You The Guy That Hit Me In The Eye" doesn't stand up as timeless music...

OTOH, even as someone who will still defend the Beatles now and then... I gotta admit, if you're gonna lose an album of theirs that's post-Revolver, that's the one to lose... >_>;;

@Balina I mean, any reasonable Korps agent knows that it's far more efficient to subvert their values over time, bring down their social structures, and warp them to your plans... :p

My brain's birthday gift to me last night was a full episode of The Prisoner. It was pretty incoherent, which TBH is to be expected and I'm just gonna take as evidence that it was from the late-run of the show. :p

I don't remember a whole lot, probably because I spent most of it sedated by various No. 2's, but I did get to help a Northern European scientist escape, and I did get to fly around in a personal gyrocopter. Also, the architecture was... *chef kiss*

I didn't have a number, which is a tragic oversight. I love being numbered, indexed, etc.!

The dream was definitely a reaction to watching about 15 minutes of "Once Upon A Time" last night, and giving up because No. 6's White Male Libertarian Protagonist Syndrome was getting to be way too much for me.

There's probably a lengthy rant in there for another day, about how he was NEVER really in any substantial danger, the odds were ludicrously tilted in his favor all along, the rules that kept everyone else from useful resistance were CLEARLY suspended for him and him alone because he had some special privileged status... and the show was CONSTANTLY bumping up against becoming fully aware of this, but turning away from the bare truth at the last moment.

Hell, maybe when Parallax is done, I'll attempt a fix-fic about it someday. I think The Prisoner's reached its stage in the Bulldada Cycle where it's overdue for a good revisionist undermining anyhow.

@hummingrain Daydreaming of slaughtering the unrighteous (and/or annoying), see previous toot. Also probably some sushi. =^_____^=

So, because I'm a lazy idiot, I still look at Google News every now and then. And I admit, I've been curious about all these Fox News headlines trumpeting that a bunch of Hispanic pastors toured the border facilities, and they're fine, fine, fine, and they don't know what this AOC loonie is talking about.

Because, you know, reality is complicated, and I can't always assume my side is correct just because they're my side. So I figured, OK, sure, let's look into this a little further. Maybe they have a valid point to give us.

HAHAHAHANOPE. Prince Potemkin has toured his village and assures us that all is well. This Rev. Samuel Rodriguez guy spoke at The King in Orange's inauguration. In 2017, he spoke in praise of Jared Kushner: "They’ve picked the wrong fight. I don’t know a more competent person. He is brilliant and is a man of the highest integrity."

And he didn't bring the faintest amount of physical evidence or documentation, just his own word and the word of the border agents he met. And absolutely no material response to AOC's reference to HER evidence, nor the other testimonials agreeing with her.

I'll tell you one thing. If I ever go Full Manticore and decide to dine on human flesh... I'll know where to start. Doesn't help that this guy also works for the Trinity Broadcast Network, the pack of liars and thieves who tricked 11-year-old me into fundamentalist to start with.

*goes down on haunches, lets out a tree-quaking snarl, and aims her snazzy new poison-laser tail towards D.C.*

@Balinares Aww, you always say the sweetest things! <3

@Leucrotta Thank you!

@Aradia Basically yes. :D

@Thaminga Thx! :D

@KitRedgrave Thank you!

On a related note, THE FUTURE OF MARS IS SECURE.

#TheKidsAreAlright
#TheKidsAreLazyAsFuck

YOU ARE NOW LEVEL 44!

Choose one of the following upgrades:

[ ] Full-Time Job
[ ] Traditional Family
[ ] Social Life
[X] Manticore Chassis

(artwork to come...)

@mawr Interestingly, while I was likely to vote "no, but" anyhow... the really visceral moment of NOPE came when you said "including modems."

For me, no BBS culture means no Steve Jackson Games, no left-libertarian phase, no Principia Discordia, and no early contact with left-leaning rationalist nerds. No polite, well-deserved smackdowns for my adolescent social habits. And no opportunity to learn how to roleplay—and all the social give-and-take that requires—early on.

Plus, I would've never seen that post about the Stormgate Aerie BBS, which means no furries. Er, OK, these days I can take or leave that one really. ;) But it was an early glimpse of "Wow, adults are still allowed to play Let's Pretend? With OTHER people?"

I would have not only likely still been a fundamentalist Christian, I would have been about five times the sullen P.I.T.A. that I am now. :>

I think the problem isn't that the Internet came to exist, but that the people we were trying to flee figured out how to use it, too. And they did the same thing to this world that they did to the "real" one that we came here to get away from. ;p

or even better:

https://i.imgur.com/LJw41Sk.gifv

+

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAcOtsvH5js

https://i.imgur.com/LJw41Sk.gifv

+

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

@hummingrain Right there with ya. Martian's honor, this entry from my commonplace book has not been edited for months...