Empress of Mars: Undisputed @zebratron2084@awoo.space

Oh, and I probably never have to deal with Seattle's rainy depressing freezing shitshow of a winter ever again, so good luck you adorable suckers. 😼😽❤️​​​

If you ever need a break from it, COME VISIT US IN THE FIRE SWAMP. <3 We've been living quite comfortably here for some time. We got pastries, we got fried shrimp, we've got the most beautiful city park you've ever seen, we've got ACTUAL COLORS ON BUILDINGS AND THINGS because that's legal here, and most importantly... we got Kitties Of Unusual Size.

@anthracite Also, WE ARE AT LEAST GONNA SHOW HER "THE KIDS" AND SWAP NOTES/BUSINESS CARDS WITH HER, RITE?!?!?!

@anthracite Izziss the one with the funky name that turned out to have the game playtest nights and the EMPHATIC pro-LGBT policy? ^____^

I can usually gauge my general mood by whether reading about happy polycules and psychedelic frolicks in Seattle makes me curl up in a little ball of self-hate and makes me feel like an exile... or makes me feel like a proud auntie for showing the next gen the way.

It's definitely the second one today, and it has been more and more lately, so... I dunno, maybe this is that "aging gracefully" I've heard so much about. And I get the rare and incomparable privileges of:
(a) near-zero personal drama
(b) magical lizard lady petting
(c) hard-won emotional stability under all the well-earned scarring
(d) that noise magical lizard ladies make when you pet them
(e) the trove of art treasurs that certain species of dragon spoor out when they're well enough petted
(f) my beautiful tribe of imaginary enby space heroes.

God, watching how things are in Ohio for some people... how people live in the parts of the country that just plain got left the fuck behind, and how screwed my old acquaintances who walked the straight-and-narrow got... made me realize how good I have it.

I'm grateful. And I'm delighted someone's carrying on the torch, because honestly, I was getting too old for that shit anyhow. =^__^=

Had some angry, angry dreams. Was with a bunch of friends in dream-Seattle and what could have been a very, very simple boardgame setup degenerated into an out-stubborning match.

I tried to break it up, but it just turned it into a shouting match, and everybody forgot about the original argument and just started blaming me.

So I ran away and said I wouldn't be coming back until everybody else was gone. And then I realized I had nowhere at all else to go. So I just sort of sat around outside seething, until one of them noticed me and decided to humiliate me with far, far more "helpful" attention than I clearly wanted.

Nope, not metaphorical for any unprocessed, unresolved traumatic experiences of the last several years at all, why do you ask?

I mean, I think I needed a good solid vent dream after all the pent-up anger at my stepsister—and the foolishness of having read uspol news.

But it's never, ever going to go away, is it. Even with them gone for good, there's never going to be any closure. It's like they won forever. And fucking idiot that I am, I'd *still* try to patch things up if there were any goddamn point in trying, or any way to do it without it becoming someone's denunciation session.

"Ooh, it comes in Arterial Spray Red!" =^___^=

I think I'd rather have one titled "HYOOMAN GUYS WHAT 🐯​HAVE EATEN," though. (It's a Martian literary reference. You philistines.)

https://www.amazon.com/Notebooks-Violent-Little-Machine-Shop/dp/B07817K6WW/ref=as_li_ss_tl?keywords=unlined+casebound&qid=1564271648&s=gateway&sr=8-7&linkCode=sl1&tag=bngbng-20&linkId=a49194b6c0236087b5028c7641d06656&language=en_US

Oh, also, they're dead broke because he lost his job and they're on Medicaid. They got their cable/internet turned off WHILE I WAS THERE, and playing games online is one of his few remaining comforts.

It's time to start guillotining people. It's long past time, actually. You get me a gun, 3,000–4,000 allies, and the address of a corporate HQ and I'll be there. If you're concerned about firearm proliferation, a torch or a pitchfork will do. Hell, I'm about ready to start putting nails through a baseball bat, hanging out during cocktail hour at Dorsia*, and taking my chances on my own.

(*close captions for the movie-impaired: favorite restaurant of the uber-rich financier serial-killer "protagonist" of American Psycho)

I'm glad at least some of my people are having a good day. Be strong and breed fast, kids, so 250 years from now I can help mow your former oppressors down with a phase rifle and piss in their arcologies. ❤️❤️❤️​

https://www.businesstoday.in/latest/trends/tiger-census-india-achieves-target-four-years-before-deadline/story/368716.html

#UpMars!

Mom has two $50 gift certificates that she's not using for the local sandwich/comfort food/gooshy dessert cafe and I am fending off the urge to just go and have a nice solid stress-eat. I can just live exclusively on kale and beans for the next three months to make up for it, right?

Nah. Gotta live. Gotta live long enough for the Singularity to happen so I can build a 50000' mecha and punch a hole in this shitsack universe, in the hopes that something better might leak through.

#GurranLagann #KaminaWasRight

@Thaminga @anthracite @Phorm There was a day that I would have been SO EXCITED at the prospect of the mainstream getting a glimpse of what postfurries are about. Now I don't know who I'd trust less not to fuck it up, them or us. *sighs and goes back to sleep in a nice quiet cave on Deimos*

@001zlnv Thank you. It went pretty bad and I had to see people I care about in some pretty dire straits. I know you've just been there too. *hug* But I did not eat my narcissist dipshit sister-in-law's face off in a maelstrom of cracking bones and spraying blood, so I'd at least consider it a moral victory. 🐯​

I was braced for the confrontation with imminent doom inflicted on a beloved family member. I can handle doom. I've been thinking about doom literally every day since I was 11 years old and lost my dad after his 2nd heart attack.

What I wasn't prepared for was my sister-in-law having gone full narcissist. She had always shown warning signs, but she spent the whole visit guilt-tripping my parents to the point of tears and complaining about how much *she'd* gone through.

Apparently she dragged my stepbrother to the attorney to get everything signed over THE WEEK he was diagnosed. She's been talking down his survival chances constantly, which I'd assumed was just my mom being a Mama Bear and exaggerating any perceived threat to her kids... but nope, I saw it first-hand.

Honestly, at first I figured Mom was just pissed because my sister-in-law's being a realist and accepting that there's basically jack-shit that can be done here, and my parents are determined that he should fight it tooth and nail

But nope, it's really happening, and I'm livid. I'm so proud of myself, given my past history of inability to bite my tongue and get into trouble over it. I just... sad there calmly trading covert sympathetically-dirty looks with my mom, and frantically texting Peggy about how fast I was coming to truly hate this woman.

And evidently she's not only been controlling his visitors, she won't allow physical therapy for him because "she doesn't like having strange people in her house."

Oh, and just to add insult to injury, she greeted me with, "Wow, you've really gone gray since I saw you last!" What a charmer, eh?

I am not sure if I'm kidding if I ask my Mad Science friends if they have access to anything... untraceable. I already told my mom I volunteer to be The Bad Guy in case this woman needs to be seriously, loudly, and finally told off.

But it wouldn't do any good, and there's not a goddamn thing I can do about any of this, so I'm gonna just take advantage of my very well-honed ability to hide things in my emotional Vault, and...

*big serene willfully-derpy Finn The Human smile*

It's gone.

In less cheerful news, in about five minutes I'm heading out to visit my cancer-stricken stepbrother. Mom warned me it's... not gonna be too cool. His morale is abysmal, his prospects are not good, and his personality may have changed a bit for the worse from the brain surgery. (Or maybe he's just snappish and irritable for REAL FUCKING UNDERSTANDABLE REASONS, including the fact his wife is a nasty selfish piece of shit. >_< )

Honestly, I'm gonna risk pissing off my parents by breaking their little veneer of silver lining. If he asks how I'm doing I'm gonna tell him the truth: "really pissed off at the universe on your behalf for this shit."

Haha, even the pose sketches for Hladolet came out adorable...

(I went with #3, of course...)

@anthracite Somehow I envisioned that entire comment as if you were a Wes Anderson character, sitting at a table with your hands folded sincerely, in an elegant bed and breakfast entirely appointed in bright orange, with a caption reading 'SUPERIOR TO YOUTUBE' under you in a quirky but tasteful sans serif font. With a scarf. A very very pastel scarf.

@001zlnv Well, I've got her ref gallery right here, might as well... https://imgur.com/a/DKq4L4O

Not to mention, it's been something like 17 years since I started playing her, so I think it's definitely time for her to get a promotion. When she got started, she was a single receiver node for Saturnian commands, the equivalent of a single portable radio.

By now, I figure she's assimilated enough other mammalian lifeforms to have some serious rank and status, rebroadcasting to many thousands of subnodes—more like the kittyborg equivalent of BBC4. _:3

@hystericempress "Long-lasting effects" + "fire." ​

@LeDiva IT'S ME, PATRICK

Sent off a commission request for my alien implantee catgirl Hladolet, and now I've got that "Calvin waiting for his propellor beanie" feel, checking my DeviantArt notes every five minutes...

I've been sheepish for the last couple of years about doing anything with Hladi because her origins (inspired by "Erotica Ann," a sexdroid from Elaine Lee's Starstruck comics) seemed a little sexist and dated, and I'm not proud of some of the ways I played her when she first hit TapestriesMUCK.

But I think I've figured out how to redeem her, by emphasizing she's NOT a sextoy, she's an transcenda, and emphasizing the "spooky alien emissary" aspects. Less goddamn Galaxina or Sorayama fembot, and more V'ger—or the False Maria from Metropolis. Still adorable, friendly, and pettable... but oh, yeah, you are DEFINITELY gonna disappear and wake up working in a factory on Saturn.

I should wake up her "sibling" Kayamanu, too—basically the same model of hypnosquidded cyborg, but a fluffy skunk DMAB enby, with red droid-livery instead of blue. I've never gotten any art of them, and I should really fix that. The world needs more cute, fuzzy enbots.